“That one can convince one’s opponents with printed reasons, I have not believed since the year 1764. It is not for that purpose that I have taken up my pen, but rather merely to annoy them, and to give strength and courage to those on our side, and to make it known to the others that they have not convinced us.”
G.C. Lichtenberg (1742 – 1799), courtesy of 'Deogolwulf'
You will have noted, I'm sure, the past tense in my title because I fear that since the stern, testing days of 1623, Boston has fallen under the wheels spell of the Democrat party and today its city leaders would not have the intelligence of their predecessors, as spelled out by Donald Boudreaux of Cafe Hayek in a letter to the NYT:
This historical experience contains a lesson for health care. The problems highlighted in your report – a surge in health-care consumption along with a shortage of health-care resources – is a predictable result of turning health care into a common-property resource. Consumers have fewer incentives to consume it wisely while physicians and other health-care providers have fewer incentives to supply it in quantities sufficient to meet all of the demands for their services.
It sounds noble to many modern ears that health care should be supplied as a ‘right.’ It likewise sounded noble to the Pilgrims’ ears that food should be supplied as a ‘right.’ But noble intentions are no substitute for proper economic incentives. Just as the Pilgrims’ experiment with supplying food as a ‘right’ failed, so, too, will our effort to supply health care as a ‘right’ fail.
Whatever happened on both sides of the pond between 1623 and now? Bloody socialism, that's what!
There is a God and I shall never doubt Him again! And let's hear it loud and clear for the good Tory people of South Suffolk who last night heaved this dodgey greaser out of their selection list for the next election. According to 'm'Lord Bishop' Hill, this less than Honourable Member, whilst serving (himself!) as chairman of the Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee, made £400k out of various 'Greenie' schemes including those totally useless but eye-wateringly expensive windmills for which we pay! The only words I can think of are 'good riddance to bad rubbish' but a witty commenter over at Guido's place sums it up better than me: I shall erect a wind-powered pig-trough in his memory!
So Frau Merkel, allegedly the leader of the German Right-wing, has done a deal with the socialists in order to form a working coalition to govern the country. As always when trying to cut a coalition deal with any Left-wing political party the agreement contains some hefty handouts to certain favoured groups which will win applause for today's politicians but will hand a shit sandwich to the next generation who will be presented with the bill!
In Der Spiegel they have an interesting article which summarises the main editorials from various German newspapers. The one that caught my eye was from the conservative Die Welt which summed up the coalition deal, thus:
The coalition contract reflects the spirit of regulation-loving statism. The very policies set in motion by former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder through his reforms of social and labor laws that created the breathing room needed for the economy to flourish and for unemployment to fall are now being systematically dismantled. In the case of the SPD [the Socialist party], this is the result of shame over the success of Schröder's Agenda 2010 (which cut worker protection and benefits for the long-term unemployed and also cost the party votes). In the case of the conservatives, it's attributable to 'Merkelism' -- e.g. a chancellor who has transformed her CDU into the first postmodern political party in Europe, one in which the idea that 'anything goes' is now an actual party value." [My emphasis]
"The message this sends to the rest of Europe is disastrous. We preach austerity to the debt crisis countries and yet we continue to fatten Germany's already plump social system instead of putting it on a diet. Germany can no longer be considered a role model for Europe."
I am not proud to say that in respect of political parties who stand for "anything goes", 'Dim Dave' beat Frau Merkel to the winning post years ago, in fact, I reckon that despite his Eton education he would have difficulty spelling the word 'conservative'! However, somewhat to my surprise, even the Left-leaning German editorials are critical of the political beneficence being ladled out to the German people who have no idea of the future costs of a minimum wage, retirement age being cut by four years, dual citizenship for children of immigrants and hefty pension increases for women with children.
Meanwhile but still on German affairs, the WSJ has another interesting sidelight on German finances. We all know that - to their credit - Germany regularly clocks-up massive surpluses much of which is expressed in terms of personal savings. However, Stephen Fiddler wonders where all these savings are going? The answer, alas, is not good:
"A high export surplus means de facto that you invest a lot of saved money abroad," the European Union's economic commissioner Olli Rehn told the German newspaper Bild in an interview published Sunday. "That may make sense. What we have seen, though, is that not all German savings were invested sensibly, but instead went into toxic securities in the U.S. for instance."
Others put it less diplomatically."German savers give their money to the financial system and it gambles it away," says Sony Kapoor, a financial expert who runs the think tank Re-Define.
It sounds harsh, but some German studies show losses on German savings abroad have been spectacular, running into several hundreds of billions of euros since 2006.
Oh dear, what a pity, never mind - and by the way, what's the German for 'sucker'?
What a grim day! Cloudy, cold, threat of rain - but even worse - the news! - 'Bunga-Bunga-Burlesque-coni' is no more! Like his somewhat more noble predecessor in the Roman Senate he has been (metaphorically) stabbed and those he thought were his ever-loving friends have shown themselves to be latter-day Brutuses and Cassiuses. Of course, he wasn't much good at being Italy's leader but in that he was merely following a fine tradition in Italian leadership and he certainly wasn't the worst. And on the plus side there can be no doubt that if anyone ever deserved to be described as 'adding to the gaiety of the nation' it was Snr. Berlusconi. Those of us elderly, introverted, pathetic and past-it Brits could only stare in admiration at reports of this splendid but equally aged 'swordsman' still doing his 'bit', so to speak, for Italy even, or perhaps, especially, as she was only seventeen years old! Pausing only to put our teeth back in and wipe our suddenly misted spectacles, we could only mutter, "Quello che un uomo!" - or we could after we had looked it up on Google Translate and learned that it means "What a man!"
'We shall not look upon his like again' - alas!
Or unless the Hungarian dwarf returns to power in La France, or, dread thought, Boris kicks Dave out and wins the next election - quelle horreur! - watch out, Ladies!
Roger Bootle at The Telegraph is the bearer of happy tidings in an article headed: No one wants Russia to implode but optimists have their work cut out. Well, perhaps "no one" is a bit of a stretch because it certainly doesn't include me! I do realise that there would be a considerable shock to the gas market but, dammit, I'm British and I 'll manage it with typical British pluck not least because the sight and sound of sundry 'gangstapparatchiks' including 'Vlad the Impaler' being swept away in the turmoil of national bankruptcy would do me a power of good. Of course, the Russian people would suffer enormously but then, that's what they do so awfully well!
Apparently, the other day 'Vlad' "described the UK as a small island that no one pays any attention to" but as Mr. Bootle reminds him, and us, we have a GDP of some $2.5 trillion compared to Russia's $2.0 trillion. See, 'Vlad', ours is bigger than yours! Also, a great deal of Russian wealth stems from its gas industry but that is rather like one of my frequent farts (for which I am fined 50p by the 'Memsahib' every time I'm caught!) in that it smells and makes a lot of noise but it ain't gonna last forever! Russia is in dire need of investment, not least because so much of its money is shifted overseas at a rapid and growing rate:
Part of the problem may be a dysfunctional banking system, which tends to restrict lending to small and medium-sized businesses. But over and above this, there is substantial capital flight. The central bank reckons that $55bn of capital will flow out of the country this year (equivalent to 2.5pc of GDP.)
The fundamental issues are the political and legal system, the appallingly high level of corruption and the dreadful demographics. The first two factors seriously inhibit investment, both foreign and domestic. They also directly reduce productivity since even mundane bits of economic activity or investment have to be liberally laced with pay-offs and bribes, with the result that the ultimate return is not as large as it should be.
Well, perhaps I am over-eager because these "events, dear boy, events" always take longer than you think but even so, in my opinion the rise and rise of shale gas could seriously dent current price levels and if the Russians find their main income shrinking who knows what the effects might be. Nothing terminal, I trust!
There is such a pleasure in refinding an old friend. No, no, not a person, can't be doing with them, simply too, too irritating, I mean a book! I read literally tons of books but only a very few of them stick in the memory but those that do are with me for life. Well, they would be if I didn't move house so often and some how misplace them, or if 'SoD' didn't keep nicking them - he denies all charges vehemently but 'I hae me doots!' Anyway, it's 'friends re-united' here at 'Chateaux Duff' and all courtesy of Amazon who provided me with a slightly scruffy but perfectly adequate second-hand edition of A Genius for War: The German Army and General Staffby the late Col. T. N. Dupuy, formerly of the US Army.
Being something of a masochist I am always rather happy when I read a book which makes me exceedingly uncomfortable as it blows away several of my dearly-held convictions and I realise what a prat I have been! Also, it serves the very useful purpose of softening my usually fierce opinions on other matters about which, I suspect, it will only take one well-written and researched book to knock them cold.
Col. Dupuy's prologue was enough to blow away a couple of examples of prejudicial thinking on my part. For example, until I first read his book (several years ago) I had assumed that the fighting qualities of the allied troops in WWII were roughly equal to those of the Germans and that they lost mainly because of Russian and American weight of men and materials:
There were substantial combat effectiveness differences within national contingents - British, American and German - but the overall comparisons were quite constant. On the average, a force of 100 Germans was the combat equivalent of 120 Americans or 120 British troops. Further refinements in the model began to reveal that in terms of casualties the differential was even greater, with German soldiers on the average inflicting three casualties on the Allies for every two they incurred. This relationship - a 20% combat effectiveness superiority, and a 3-to-2 casualty-inflicting superiority - was found to be still in effect during the 1944 fighting in Normandy and France, and as late a December 1944, at the time of the Germans' Ardennes offensive.
One of the other myths blown away by Col. Dupuy was the dearly-held notion that the German soldier was an unthinking, semi-automatum who did nothing without orders but when given them followed them to the last letter. Again, completely and utterly wrong, and his history of the Prussian (and then German) General Staff explains exactly how wrong that was and why. A superb book and, for me, a dear, old friend refound!
I hasten to explain, lest the likes of 'Harry Harperson' and her soppy lot faint away, that I use the term "W.O.G.s" in it's initial, acronymic meaning of 'Wily Oriental Gentlemen' which, in its way, was a sort of back-handed compliment aimed particularly at Orientals to indicate that they were exceedingly intelligent and crafty. Their aura of somewhat mystical cleverness remains with us today such that if the proprietor of your local Chinese restaurant offered you the winner of the 3.30 at Fontwell Park you might suspect a catch somewhere!
Of course, this feeling of slight intellectual inferiority on the part of westerners dealing with Orientals may well hinder the efforts of western diplomats, statesmen and generals in dealing with a resurgent China, and perhaps even more tricky, a re-militarised Japan. The fact is that none of them are inherently either more or less intelligent than occidentals. But at any given time the intelligence/stupidity quotient between all the parties concerned might well be different simply on the laws of chance. For an example of similarities, I am constantly struck by the almost infantile vacuity and self-delusion that infected the Wilhemine leadership of Germany in the first fourteen years of the 20th century, and the equally mad delusions of murderous grandeur and bombosity exhibited by the Japanes leadership in the 1930s and early '40s. In the 'stoopid stakes' you could not put a fag-paper between them!
And talking of 'stoopids', if we consider for any length of time the Obama White House and the Kerry State Department we realise rapidly that we are in real 'goofball' territory. The 'stoopid' problem in Washington has now been compounded by a slow but steady clearing of the ranks in their military high commands and their replacement with politically-correct stooges with whom Obama is more comfortable. We need waste no time pondering the 'stoopid' problem in London because as it stands today we have more aircraft carriers than the government has brain cells! Of course, we have absolutely no aircraft carriers and thus we have absolutely nothing to offer the Americans and we can do nothing other than sit the whole thing out on the sidelines - pheeeew, that's a relief!
Turning to the Chinese, it is not easy to predict their moves in advance not, I think, because they are 'devilish cunning' but because there appear to be too many cooks stirring the chop suey! My guess is that there are some deep divisions between the Party, which is itself split between modernisers and traditionalists whose only point of agreement is the absolute necessity of exerting total power for as long as possible, and the military which like its counterparts everywhere loves showing off and playing with its 'toys' - and better still, knocking other people about to prove how manly they are! Then, finally, there are 'The People' - dread word! - which in a country the size of China is an entity difficult to pin down. Regional differences are as deep and unyielding as those between town and country. Of course, both military and government will be keen to waive the flag vigorously in order to use 'patriotism' as a sort of super-glue. Unfortunately, it will be as difficult to predict specific Chinese actions as it was to predict the vagaries of pre-first-war Wilhemine German and pre-second-war Imperial Japan. The only absolute certainty, without even a shadow of doubt, is that over the next few decades China will seek to dominate, in one way or another, the western Pacific rim and that they will almost certainly start with Japan!
As for the Japanese, they received the message loud and clear several years ago which is when they began their re-militarisation and if any of them had any doubts they were ended by last week's stroke by the Chinese to slap air restrictions over a part of the South China Sea containing a handful of tiny islands owned by Japan. The Americans, surprised me - and the Chinese, I guess - by immediately flying a couple of B-52s right through the middle of it without any warning to anyone! Almost the equivalent of "Make my day, Punk!" This will have humiliated certain of the Chinese especially, I guess, those ridiculous-looking generals who can barely walk under the tons of metal pinned to their chests - awarded for God knows what! This might - just! - make them think twice before they chance making fools of themselves again - although when they do it will be better thought-out and thus may prove much more tricky for the Americans to respond. And it will happen again, there is absolutely no doubt about that!
No, no, when I refer to "foreigners" I do not mean the Cornish, a charming if incomprehensible collection of far-west country men and women, and from whom I have returned in one piece but weighed down with a fairly large selection of Cornish pasties. One of the pleasures in visiting the Memsahib's family is that we get the chance to stop off in Tavistock, positively my favourite country town.
However, in my absence, the Chinese finally 'kicked off' on their long-term plan to turn the Pacific into a Chinese lake. I have things to do this morning but later on I will return to this fascinating and potentially deadly subject. What was a surprise was the very swift and determined response from the USA. I can only assume the White House and the State Department didn't know its bombers were scheduled to fly straight through this so-called 'air defence' part of the South China Sea. If he had known, it might - just - have put OBama off his game of golf!
First of all, an important notice! I will be off-air for two days whilst I visit the 'Memsahib's' family in Cornwall. I apologise in advance for the spam-blight which will no doubt effect the comments during my absence. Please, just ignore them.
This first 'funny' is in appalling taste and may well cost me my knighthood!
"I'm Christopher" he replied "but everyone calls me Dick for short" "How do you get Dick from Christopher?" she asked "You just ask nicely" he replied .
And now for the shaggiest shaggy-dog story ever, courtesy of my 'e-palette', Miss Red:
A certain bookmaker who was making a long trip by car when toward nightfall he happened upon an inn which had a most unusual name: "The Even Steven".
Since it was located in the middle of a desolate stretch of country, and he didn't know how much farther the next place would be, he decided to stop there for the night. He registered, listing his occupation as a bookmaker, and decided to satisfy his curiosity about the name at the same time.
"It's very simple, really," the proprietor explained. "You see, my name is Steven Even. So I just decided to turn it around and call this The Even Steven. I thought it might get a few folks puzzled enough to stop and ask questions, and sometimes it does."
"That's a pretty smart way to use the luck of a name," said the bookie, appreciatively. "I bet it brings you a lot of business."
"It hasn't brought me so much luck," he said. "The folks who stop here don't stay long. There's not much gaiety around here, as you could see. In fact, there's not another soul lives closer than thirty miles away, whichever way you go. Makes it pretty lonely for me, a widower. And worse still for my daughters — two of the loveliest girls you ever set eyes on, should have their pick of boyfriends. But, they are getting so frustrated they're about to do anything for a man."
The bookie made sympathetic noises, and listened to more in the same vein until hunger obliged him to change the subject to that of food. An excellent home-cooked dinner was served to him by a gorgeous blonde who introduced herself as Blanche Even, and when he was finished she still kept pressing him to ask for anything else he wanted.
Finally, she said, "Would you like me to sit and talk to you for a while?"
"Thank you," he said politely, "but I've had a long day and I feel like closing the book."
He went to his room and had just started to undress when there was a knock at the door and an absolutely breathtaking brunette came in. "I'm Carmen Even," she said. "I just wanted to see if you'd got everything you want."
"I think so, thank you," he said pleasantly. "I do a lot of traveling, so I pack very systematically."
When she had gone, he settled down with a sigh of relief and was about to put out the light at last when the door burst open once more and the proprietor himself stomped in, glowing with indignation.
"What's the matter with you," he roared. "I've got to listen all night to my daughters moaning an' wailing, the most luscious gals in this county, because they all try to show you hospitality an' you won't give one of 'em a tumble. Ain't us Evens good enough for you?"
"I'm sorry," said the transient. "But I told you when I registered that I'm a professional bookmaker: I only lay Odds."
Look, don't blame me, I don't make 'em up, I just tell 'em the way they're sent to me! Anyway, get on with your work!
My 'flabber' is well and truly 'gasted':The bottomless pit that is named 'You Couldn't Make It Up' has just sunk a further foot deeper into the ground. According to The Mail, three female RAF recruits have just successfully sued the MoD and won £100,000 each. 'I say, old gel, bit of a wizard prang, was it?' No, actually it was because during their recruit training they were made to march with men who took longer strides than these poor little girlies could manage and in stretching their legs they damaged their, er, pelvises! This was £10k more thanothers would have received for injuries likely to reduce their life expectancy by more than five years.
Inflow of migrants means overflow of toilets at No. 10: Well, it's not as though 'Dim Dave' didn't know they were coming! And from January 1st they will be coming en masse from Romania and Bulgaria.Many of them, of course, should be made very welcome because they intend to work, probably harder than most Brits, but a good proportion of them will be here for the handouts and, given their historical traditions, the Roma will flood in to practice their ancient, er, skills! One result is absolutely certain, and we had a taste of it this week in The Mail, there will be a non-stop stream of effluent in the form of 'SHLOCK-HORROR' headlines in the prints, all blaming 'Dim Dave' for his cowardice in not standing up to 'Rumpey-Pumpey' and the other 'Euro-Kommissars'.
Will it get nasty? I do hope so! An interesting piece by Matthew d' Ancona in The Telegraphtoday. Particularly interesting in the light of a pathetic, cry-baby whimper from Ed 'Milipede' in The Independent in which he runs to 'Mummy Public' and sobs that that horrid bully, David Cameron, is being nasty to him. He whines that Cameron is smearing him and his best chums with innuendoes about the monstrous, queer, dope-addict, 'Rev.' Flowers, just because once they were all mates together and Flowers loaned them a few quid, er, well, several tens of thousands actually plus, of course, £1.5 mill to the Party! Considering this comes from a man who leads a party which once employed Damian McBride, Alistair Campbell and Peter Mandelson, and which never ceases to remind the public of the Dave 'n' George's Bullingdon Club goings-on, the stench of humbuggery is overwhelming. But d' Ancona frets that in this new turmoil with the brown stuff hitting several fans at once, there will be a break-down in the unspoken truce between the leaderships of all the main political parties not to dredge up private peccadilloes indulged in by various individuals before they entered parliament. Well, I'm all for it, bring it on, I say, let them all get 'down and dirty' and let us be the judge!
Two 'Must Reads' - and that's an order! Well, anything's better than reading the sort of rubbish you get here! I have already drawn your attention to a gloomy but, alas, I suspect, all too accurate assessment of the future of American conservatism written by James Hurth for the American Foreign Policy Research Institute. I am going to have to read it again because it has been niggling away at the back of my brain all week. The implications are somewhat grim. Then, I recommend another excellent read, a piece by Daniel Hannan for The WSJ in which he describes the growth of what might be called 'Anglophone exceptionalism'. He ends his piece by pointing up the geo-political importance in Asia of whether or not India casts its lot in with the "loose Anglosphere network". As always with Mr. Hannan, a thought-provoking essay. I am grateful to my e-pals, JK and Michael Adams, respectively, for providing the links.
A quite exceptional lady: As always, the Telegraph Obits provide one with examples of lives well-led, of men and women of exceptional intelligence and ability and courage, as well, of course, as the rogues and rascals at the other end of the scale! However, I was deeply impressed with the obit of Mavis Batey who died on November 12th at the age of 92. In 1940, as a German-speaker, she was recruited into British intelligence at the tender age of 19 and ended up as an assistant to 'Dilly' Knox, then the maestro of British code-breakers. The story of her work on breaking the Italian 'enigma' machine which led to a catastrophe for the Italian navy at Matapan is fascinating. Even more so, and with history-changing results, was her work with Knox and others on breaking the 'enigma' machine used by the German Abwehr, their secret service. Their success allowed them to confirm that the false intelligence fed back to the Germans via double-agents was being accepted as gospel! The result, in effect, was that Hitler kept two armoured divisions back at the Pas de Calais instead of releasing them to defend in Normandy. A splendid lady and I salute her memory.
I’m appalled by everyone who called in today expressing hopes that one day one of their children ”might become President of the United States.”
My son, Thomas, is ten. I hope that he graduates from college and has a satisfying and lucrative career. But I’d much rather that he be even a janitor or a used-car salesman than become a successful politician. To succeed at politics - especially at the national level – requires duplicity and shamelessness rivaled only by arrogance. For my son to become President he would have to abandon nearly every moral precept that his mother and I try hard now to impart to him: honesty, forthrightness, decency, respect for others, and modesty. We emphatically do not want our son to yearn for power, for to do so would inevitably corrode his humanity.
And, yes, I did notice that he equated a "used-car salesman" with a "janitor" which, frankly, I feel is a bit of slap to janitors! Even so, his summary of the prerequisites for becoming President (or Prime Minister) is spot on and rather appropriate as we contemplate the anniversary of Kennedy's death.
Call me Mr. Worryguts but: Why do I feel so very uneasy when I see on my 'telly' a bunch of Iranian thugs looking exceedingly smug, John Kerry looking as though he has just enjoyed a dish of strawberries and cream and in his enthusiasm actually managing to kiss that dim and ghastly Labour 'apparatchik' woman who runs - don't laugh! - EU foreign affairs, and all that followed by the Prince of Lying Liars, His Royal Aloofness, Barack Obama, telling us that an historic deal has been made over Iranian nuclear capabilities. Start digging now . . .
China vs. Japan - and it ain't football!News this weekend that China has unilaterally placed an air defence zone over a sector of the South China Sea which just happens to contain some titchy islands owned by Japan. Cue: lots of small, slit-eyed, bow-legged men leaping 10' in the air, swishing curved swords around and spitting out, "Ha!", "Kai!", "Sho!" and so forth. Quite what it will come to in the long run I do not know. However, if the Japanese are relying for support on their American ally then they should have a word with the Israelis! And if as a result, 'good', old, Japanese militarism rises again, sun-like in the East, then all I can say is that I am delighted it's all on the other side of the globe!
Over the past few days I have been inundated with visitors linking to a blog post I wrote a few weeks ago welcoming the return to 'Blogdom' of Ms. Anna Raccoon from cancer treatment. Confused as to why this post of mine was attracting so many hits I went to visit her site and found, alas, that it seems to have disappeared. There was no warning of this disappearance and no explanation. If anyone has any information I would be glad to hear it because I much admire the acerbic Ms. Raccoon and wish her well.
Apart from my morning swim I must confess that my, er, participation in sporting activities is confined to the depths of my armchair where, with the sort of stamina that would be the envy of any so-called 'hearty', I manage to operate the 'do-flicker-thingie' in order to switch between channels, usually from Ladies' Beach Ball to Ladies' Wrestling and back again. My prowess at this exhausting activity is renowned!
Thus, I am more than well-qualified to offer some advice to the rulers of our two main sports - football and cricket. The performance of our national teams in these two sporting disciplines has been dismal beyond belief, in fact, so loud and emotional is the wailing and gnashing of teeth that I am no longer able to listen to 'TOOOOOORKSPOOOOOORT'. Clearly, something must be done and so I am proud that this sporting blog has a simple solution: let the English cricket team play football and the English football team play cricket!
Oh, come on, they couldn't be any worse, could they?
Today is officially a D&N 'Happy Day'! That is because I left the swimming pool - er, have I mentioned that every morning I go - oh, right, I have - so, moving on - I left the swimming pool in time to catch Tim Lihoreau on 'Classicfm' playing, as he does every Friday at 8 minutes to eight, Souza's Liberty Belle March. I tell you, there is no better way to start your day than with that splendid, cheerful march. Also, of course, it coincided with yesterday's news that the Monty Python team are reforming for a one-off show which I am sure will feature the march that was their signature tune.
Then, later this morning, as usual, I cruised the highways and byeways of Blogdom - and nearly fell off my chair at EU Referendum, the home, or perhaps fortress might be a better word, of Dr. Richard North, the normally granite-faced, irascible Yorkshireman who bombards Brussels on a daily basis, because today he was positively cheerful! Well, perhaps I exaggerate a tad or two, but I feel sure there was a slight crack in his features as he reported that the Ukrainians had just told Brussels to get lost! Apparently, although the good Doctor didn't put it in quite these terms, the Ukrainian dictator president has let it be known that he has no intention of releasing his predecessor who, poor lady, languishes in jail, and that anyway, having compared the physiques of 'Vlad the Impaler' and Mr. 'Rumpey-Pumpey' he definitely preferred Putin and his pecs. Well, who would you choose?!
Don Corleone A Brussel sprout
Apparently, when the news came through to Brussels the apparatchiks were, and here I rely on my, er, trusty Google Translate, totally "gob claqué" (that's 'gob smacked' to you ignoramuses). All I can say is that anything that cheers up Dr. North cheers up me!
That is the front page headline in today's Daily Mail and they printed it in the largest possible font size as a heading on page one which is takenup entirely by a single story - a poll on immigration in which the Tories actually poll lower than Labour when it comes to trustworthiness on immigration. So far, so Daily Mail-ish, you might think but I wonder whether it presages a move by the Mail which could be hugely damaging to the Tories. Perhaps they are winding themselves up (in line with the sage advise dispensed by this blog!) to ditch the Tories at next year's Euro election and instead throw their weight behind UKIP. The Mail is only second to the Sun in circulation and given their past record the Sun, too, is capable of dropping the Tories. From January onwards we are likely to see a huge influx of Romanians and Bulgarians and both these big circulation papers can be relied upon to whip up a never-ending storm on the subject. If they were both to urge support for UKIP will there be even a single Tory in the European parliament? And if that is the outcome, how hot and sweaty is your local Tory MP going to be as he or she contemplates the general election in 2015?
Next Summer the Royal Shakespeare Company are playing Henry IV parts I and II with that splendid actor Anthony Sher playing the part of Falstaff. He, of course, is a tremendously good actor but even so the RSC should take their courage in their hands and sack him because a new talent has burst upon the scene and, darlings, he is just so, so right to play the fat, rascally Knight. Here are a couple of photos and when I tell you that his name is Paul Flowers, well, need I say more?
Sorry, sorry, Anthony, darling, you would have been brilliant but the advantage that dear Paul has over you is that he has lived the part! Er, also, the accounts dept. tell me that the saving on padded suits will be welcomed. Even so, Anthony, love, we do want you to stand by as an understudy just in case dear Paul is hauled off to the Tower by the current and all too real, Lord Chief Justice - honestly, 600 years go by and there's no difference between them, no sense of humour at all, must go with the job, I suppose!
The greatest allies the Republican party has today are President Obama and his Democrat party! The so-called 'Obamacare' project has crash landed and I sense that the worst is yet to come. In any event, the American people now have a rock-hard example to confirm their suspicion that governments are incapable of actually organising a piss up in a brewery! Now is the chance, one would think, for a Republican party, united behind a philosophy of smaller government, to stand together at the forthcoming hustings and sweep the board. Fat chance!
As Jeffrey Lord spells out in The American Spectator, the Republicans are split down the middle! Actually, I'm not sure if the split is actually in the middle, it is more a split between the ordinary 'Joe Does' who mostly loathe government and the political apparatchiks who love it. You can understand why politicians of all colours love government because it is through government that they can exert their power. For the average politician, the whole game, the whole wretched business of smarming to 'the folks', attending endless numbers of tedious 'chicken suppers', wheedling money out of donars, kissing babies and media arseholes, is all worth it for that chance to gain office and wield power! So, it is going to be a hard job to find a politician who not only does not wish to wield power but positively strives to relinquish as much of it as possible. Such people are as rare as hens' teeth which is why we, on both sides of the pond, have only only enjoyed one Ronald Reagan and one Margaret Thatcher.
Jeffrey Lord is a brave man because in his article he takes on no less an opponent than 'The Kraut', than whom . . . etc, etc! 'The Kraut' argues that there is no split in the Republican party on matters of principle only of tactics, as he said on TV:
I think this whole thing [a split in the Republican party] is very much blown up in the liberal media…. The difference between the hard right and moderates is really one over tactics rather than over ideology and objectives…. On objectives you tell me what is the fundamental difference between the so-called moderates and radicals. I don’t see it. We all agree on limited government, we all agree on restoration of individual rights, we all agree on liberty being the central ideal, we all agree on the restoration of individual responsibility and initiative… where’s the big difference?... This is ginned up by a lot of players for a lot of self-interested reasons…. Cool this a little bit by looking rationally at what are the real differences… and they are tactical.
Jeffrey Lord absolutely disagrees and in doing so actually quotes the late, and very much under-estimated, Sir Keith Joseph:
When you ask “where’s the big difference?” I would suggest it is right there with moderates whose view of the federal government and its role is entirely different from that of the party’s conservative base.
As has been discussed here before this difference was well expressed by Margaret Thatcher’s longtime adviser, the late Sir Keith Joseph. Joseph believed that the internal dynamics of politics continually ratcheted left — and that British Conservatives had simply acceded to what was called socialist ratcheting. To be a Conservative Prime Minister was to simply manage the leftward, socialist ratchets of the last Labour government, never to change course. The reason for Thatcher’s success — and Reagan’s in America — was precisely because they did not go along with the leftward socialist ratcheting and sought to ratchet rightward. To go completely in the other direction.
That seems to me to be absolutely spot on. And as Mr. Lord also reminds us, both these 'counter-revolutionary' leaders were forced to struggle against their own parties, the majority of whom simply could not bring themselves to diminish in any way their own power.
If 'Obamacare' brings down the Democrat party then the Republicans need to be aware of the danger of collateral damage. As Americans survey the wreckage, more and more of them will demand to know what solution the Republicans can offer. At that point the brown stuff will hit the Republican fan - so be ready to duck!
Given his family background - if 'family' is quite the word - I was not too suprised when practically the first thing Obama did on entering the White House was to get rid of the bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office. Nor did I mind too much when it became clear that he despises Britain because it is a large and not very exclusive club whose members include most of the world's leaders. And anyway, why should he like this country? It is presumptious to assume otherwise. However, what has only slowly dawned on me over the past five years is that he also despises America - I was about to write 'his own country' but then I remembered that with his background America might not actually come in to that definition.
This week he chose, deliberately, to ignore the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address which stands in direct contrast to his starring role at the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. Perhaps, there were important matters of State to attend but somehow I can't help feeling that a WSJ luncheon with sundry businessmen hardly stands comparison with the celebration of Lincoln's iconic speech. I think even Bill Clinton would have recognised the difference.
I wonder when it will dawn on the American people that they have a president who actively detests his own country. Some time ago I suggested that Obama was surrounded by people whose only political desire was to bring down American society to a state of emergency because only in those chaotic conditions would they stand a chance of seizing the sort of powers they dream of. As I said a few posts down, with the passage of 'Obamacare' he and his government have, with malice aforethought, deliberately attacked and destroyed health insurance plans held by millions of Americans and have offered them nothing, that's nothing as in zero-zilch, in return. As this cruelty becomes clear there is a chance of very real trouble which, of course, will play into the hands of Obama's apparat.
Yes, indeed, dear reader, distraught is the word and I write that as Founder, President for Life and, so far, sole member of the (R)SPOT. 'Waddya mean, ya never hoid of it'?! Let me tell you that the (R)SPOT is a very distinguished organisation even if, or perhaps, especially as, I am the sole member. Allow me to roll out the full title - the (Royal) Society for the Preservation Of Ties. Of course, the 'royal' bit has to be in brackets until such time as Her Maj graces us with her favour but I reckon the first time she cops old Phil wandering about the palace without a necktie, he'll get a right royal bollocking and I'll get a knighthood!
However, today (R)SPOT is distraught because news has come through that Tie Rack is to close its remaining shops. This is a severe blow to us chaps who continue to uphold the tradition of gentlemen wearing a necktie - and it's no good The Sun or one of the other Fleet Street purveyers of filth and gossip sneaking round here to take a sneaky snap of me going about tie-less because I admit it! Yes, most of the time I do not wear a tie but that's only because none of my friends - cheapskates that they are - invite me to places where a tie would be required. Which is a real nuisance because I do enjoy wearing one. Not just that but also it puts me in touch with my feminine side as I ponce about for at least an hour trying to decide which tie is best and as I only have about 20 ties you can see how 'picky' I am.
Personally, I blame that leader of common - and I do mean 'common' - culture, Mr. Simon Cowell. No lady of taste and discernment would wish
to spend an evening looking at his hairy chest. I assume they spend most of their time gazing at his bulge, you know, the pocket where he keeps his enormously fat wallet! What? Jealous . . . moi? Anyway, next time you see a charity tin in aid of (R)SPOT drop a few quid in because I might be able to pick up a bargain or three at the Tie Rack closing down sale.
My apologies to Mr. Sondheim for not only misappropriating his famous song but defiling it with a rude word! It is, of course, part of the mission statement of this blog to be constantly as rude as possible about politicians but even my heart softens when, as they do regularly, they slap on the grease paint, the orange wig, the red nose, the baggy pants and the big boots and proceed to drop buckets of water over themselves as they execute the latest in prat-falls. It really does add to the gaiety of the nation. Today we can all sit back and enjoy the frantic antics of not one, not two, but three political clowns.
First up we have Mr. Paul Flowers, a Labour party politician and Methodist minister, a man with a deviant sexual history going back thirty years (no sniggering!) but which both the Methodist church and teh Labour party were prepared to, er, forgive and forget - very Christian and comradely of them, I'm sure. This fat plonker wormed his way up the Labour party ladder to the very top of the Co-operative Bank which went on to lend the Labour party zillions which, of course, came from the deposits and savings of those very self-same "hardworking families" that Labour never stops prating about. As it stands at the moment, with the unions refusing to give Labour any more money until 'Ed Milipede' crawls off their backs, there is very little chance of Labour being able to repay the loans. So much for the trusting little people - suckers!
For my second big, fat clown we need to go 'over there' but not straight 'over there', we need to steer a bit north to a country, I must admit, I always thought was amongst the most boring in the world, Canada. I refer, of course, to Mayor (look, I won't have any sniggering!) Rob Ford of Ontario. This monumentally fat clown has been caught out as an alcoholic, cocaine-snorting nutcase. His City council has stripped him of most of his powers but they cannot remove him as mayor - that is for the citizens of Ontario to decide at the next election and if they have a sense of humour which they must need in the frozen wastes of Canada they will re-elect him with a huge majority so that they can watch this 'raging bull' of a man exact his cocaine-fuelled vengeance on his fellow councillors. Well, as entertainment it beats ice-hockey!
The third clown is the biggest of the lot, not physically because he is what my old mother would have called a "skinny-malinky long-legs and umbrella feet"! Yes, you've guessed, I refer of course, to Mr. President 'Goofball' himself! Even for a verbal gusher like me it is now impossible - my handy Thesaurus has burst into flames! - to find the right words to describe the enormity of this 'Obamacare' disaster. With malice afore-thought, plus some mega-stupidity, this clown of a president, who makes 'Dubya' look as brainy as Freeman Dyson, aided and abetted by the 'Dimocrat' party has attacked the vast majority of Americans in their most sensitive areas - their health insurance and their wallets. But - and it's a fairly hefty 'but' - President 'Goofball' has achieved one thing hitherto thought impossible - he makes 'Dim Dave' look, well, quite bright, actually!
Hard to believe but Jonathon S. Tobin at Commentary would have it so. According to him, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt have, in effect, surrendered to army power. Since the military coup their choice has been harsh, either toe the line and behave yourselves or you will have absolutely no part of any new arrangement for running Egypt's affairs. That message has been hammered into them by the army who have arrested their leaders and shot their supporters as and when they appeared, in decreasing numbers, on the streets. The important point, according to Tobin, is that the Egyptian people have also made a choice - of two uncomfortable dictatorial regimes on offer, on the whole, they prefer the lilitary to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Needless to say, with unerring incompetence Obama's State Department also chose sides and as usual chose the wrong side! They sympathised with Morsi and his fundamentalist fanatics and cut their support to the Egyptian army. This had one fairly obvious result, well, obvious to anyone other than the likes of John Kerry, that it has opened the door for the Russians to step in and see if they can be of any assistance to the Egyptian army! You couldn't make it up!
It was only a few weeks ago that I reported the very welcome return of Tim Newman to his always interesting blog, White Sun of the Desert. Being something of a 'derring-do' oil man, always up at the sharp end of the drill-bit in some hell-hole or other, his occasional absences were understandable, but now he seems to have more of a back-office role in the very much more civilised and salubrious country of Australia. Anyway, once again I am recommending as strongly as possible that you take time to read a recent post of his which might be retitled "Never give a sucker an even break!" It is absolutely excellent - just click here and go read!
I vaguely remember litmus tests during school chemistry lessons. The litmus was either blue and turned red, or red and turned blue, can't remember exactly now. Whatever, we may soon see what George Osborne's true colours are because according to The Mail, government borrowing is likely to be £20 billion less than was forecast. Before you pop your corks, allow me to remind you that that still means our Chanceller, as he sits on the pavement with a bedraggled dog on his lap, shaking his empty cloth-cap under the noses of the international Shylocks, will still have begged, borrowed or stolen, a cool £100 billion this year.
The main reasons for the lower borrowing requirement this year are higher than expected corporation tax receipts plus a one-off bonus from flogging the Royal Mail. The litmus test will take effect in a few weeks time when Osborne delivers the Autumn statement and you will instantly see whether he turns blue or red. Our total borrowing today stands at around £1,300billion, so a mere £20 billion isn't much but what he does with it will send all sorts of signals. The best use, of course, would be to pay off more debt. That might help the credit agencies put us back up to AAA standard which would lower our borrowing costs as the lenders would have more confidence. Or, you could just blow it! You know, some snazzy-jazzy special offers "for hardworking families" (who else?) which will make terrific headlines and help put Georgie back in the Treasury in 2015.
Sorry, there are absolutely no prizes for guessing - it's a no-brainer!
ADDITIONAL:Damn! Almost forgot the chance to use one of my favourite Shakespearean quotes:
Normally I am a very staid, conservative, unadventurous type of chap who wouldn't try anything new in a hundred years but, I must confess that every so often I throw caution under the wheels and take a giant leap for mankind, er, well, for me, at any rate. So, I think I have decided to change my broadband and telephone provider. Desperately searching my memory I think the last time I did that the internet had not yet been invented! However, what I do remember, because it seared my soul, was that it took for ever and involved hundreds of hours screaming abuse at some poor Indian chap who was, I am sure, a truly pukka sahib but also a total prat! I keep shuddering at the memory so it is entirely possible that at the last moment I will chicken out and opt for the soft, if expensive, option of staying with the provider I already have. Anyway, the point of this meandering twaddle is to warn you that I may go 'off air' sometime this week (but hopefully not next week, as well!) but, like Gen. MacArthur, "I shall return!"
Better get your laughs in quickly because they tell me that we have a ton or two of 'global warming' heading our way for two weeks! And, it's only November!
It was autumn, and the Indians on the remote reservation asked their new Chief if the winter was going to be cold or mild. Since he was a new Indian Chief in a modern society, he had never been taught the old secrets, and when he looked at the sky, he couldn't tell what the weather was going to be. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he replied to his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village should collect wood to be prepared. But also being a practical leader, after several days he got an idea.
He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and asked, "Is the coming winter going to be cold?"
"It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold indeed," the meteorologist at the weather service responded.
So the Chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more wood in order to be prepared. A week later he called the National Weather Service again.
"Is it going to be a very cold winter?"
"Yes," the man at National Weather Service again replied, "it's going to be a very cold winter."
The Chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of wood they could find. Two weeks later he called the National Weather Service again.
"Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?"
"Absolutely," the man replied. "It's going to be one of the coldest winters ever."
"How can you be so sure?" the Chief asked.
The weatherman replied, "The Indians are collecting wood like crazy!"
That joke should be pinned above the desk of every climatologist in the world but especially those forecasting global warming!
A woman goes into Discount Fishing Supplies to buy a rod and reel for her grandson's birthday. She doesn't know which one to get, so she just picks one and goes over to the counter. The salesman is standing there, wearing dark glasses. She says, "Excuse me. Can you tell me anything about this rod and reel?"
He says, "Madam, I'm completely blind; but if you'll drop it on the counter, I can tell you everything you need to know about it from the sound it makes."
She doesn't believe him but drops it on the counter anyway.
He says, "That's a six-foot Shakespeare graphite rod with a Zebco 404 reel and 10-lb...Test line. It's a good all around combination, and it's actually on sale this week for $44."
She says, "That's amazing that you can tell all that, just by the sound of it dropping on the counter. I'll take it!"
As she opens her purse, her credit card drops on the floor.
"Oh, that sounds like a Visa card," he says.
As the lady bends down to pick up the card, she accidentally passes wind. At first she's really embarrassed, but then realises there is no way the blind salesman would tell exactly who had farted.
The man rings up the sale and says, "That'll be $58.50 please."
The woman is totally confused by this and asks, "Didn't you tell me it was on sale for $44. How did you get $58.50?"
"The Duck Caller is $11, and the Fish Bait is $3.50."
This isn't a joke; it is pure, unadulterated, evocative joy from a bygone age. So on this damp, chilly, Monday morning let's enjoy it the way they did:
The curvacious Mr. Kuznets: No, I hadn't heard of him either but he is another of those economic swots, like Prof. Laffer, who are able to dig deeply into what is in fact commonsense and then produce very learn-ed papers explaining why it is correct. Thus, in considering some of the problems facing China like their economic inequality then, just like the original 'Laffer curve', Mr. Kuznets produces a neat diagram which, considering that it more or less describes what has happened in a host of countries since the British industrial revolution, can't have been that difficult to do. As countries industrialise economic inequality grows but at a certain point it begins to fall, probably, I guess, as a result of that pesky 'trickle down effect' so hated by the socialists.
I am grateful to Timmy for offering a variation on this theme, as well as introducing me to Mr. Kuznets, in which he shows that one of the truly bad effects of industrialisation is a huge increase in truly nasty polution but that, too, follows the Kuznets curve and eventually decreases. I have absolutely no doubt that China will follow the curve in time.
The non-democratic Democratparty: I provide this link mainly for the benefit of my American friends. Look upon it as a resupply of ammo should you find yourself in a fierce fire-fight with some Lefty Democrat:
Needless to say, I have it saved for future reference!
Look out, here comes Kennedy-mania! Next Friday is the 50th anniversary of Jack Kennedy's assassination so expect a deluge of historical 'post hoc' memoires and aanalyses. I think it is now fairly clear that as a man he was an A1 shit of the first order but that seems to have been a family trait, and anyway, being a rascal has never been a bar to success as a politician - one thinks, even fondly, of Talleyrand and Bismarck. But these were men possessed of formidable political acumen, something that all the Kennedy's seemed to lack, unsurprisingly given that their sole aim was the enrichment in power and money of the Kennedy clan. And, yes, I fell for the BS at the time but I was young and that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it! I notice from one of the links below that Obama intends to visit the Kennedy grave - how eminently suitable!
America plays with nuclear matches: I think, when the history books are written, assuming there are any after a possible nuclear war in the middle east, President Obama, whose behaviour on the international stage can only be described as childish, petulant and irrational, will be seen as the political dilletante that he is. Brought up and developed, as he was, under the sort of Left-wing politik that can only be described in sentences short enough to fit on a protest banner, he is proving to be hopeless at foreign affairs. Perhaps his own innate anti-Americanism plays some part in it. As a result of his so-called diplomacy in the middle east it now looks as though the impossible might happen with Israel climbing into bed with the Saudis. Both, for similar reasons, are determined not to allow the Iranians to develop the bomb. According to the Times of Israel, Saudi Arabia is considering the possibility of offering practical aid to the Israelis in the form of staging posts for attack aircraft in the event that Netanyahu decides to strike. 'Whodathunkit'?
Vintage Mark Steyn: For my money, which ain't worth much, I admit, Mark Steyn is still the wittiest, sharpest commentator on American affairs that I have come across. Here is a taster from his latest column on the eccentric and ego-centric capers of King George III Barry Obama:
On Thursday, he passed a new law at a press conference. George III never did that. But, having ordered America’s insurance companies to comply with Obamacare, the president announced that he is now ordering them not to comply with Obamacare. The legislative branch (as it’s still quaintly known) passed a law purporting to grandfather your existing health plan. The regulatory bureaucracy then interpreted the law so as to un-grandfather your health plan. So His Most Excellent Majesty has commanded that your health plan be de-un-grandfathered. That seems likely to work. The insurance industry had three years to prepare for the introduction of Obamacare. Now the King has given them six weeks to de-introduce Obamacare.
This isn't government, this is just the latest production from the 'Carry On' franchise, minus the appalling jokes, not because the White House gags are better but because they haven't got any at all! Someone should feed King Barry with, perhaps the greatest gag of all from the 'Carry On' films:
All I'm thinking is 'hurry up, dear!' This just arrived in my In-box because I have signed up to receive quotations from the 'In the Pursuit of Copiousness' site. Some are droll, some are quirky, some are wise and some revelatory. I leave you to decide into which category this fits:
"When a man opens the car door for his wife, he is doing far more than just getting the door open. It is not a matter of utility. It is not a question of pragmatics. Granted, we could save energy all around if both individuals opened their own doors. But he is making a statement in addition to getting the door open. He is disciplining his own heart and soul, which need it, and he is honoring his wife, who is glorified by it. The role of the man here, if we may speak this way, is not just to get the door open. His central role is the liturgical act of saying that women everywhere should be held in honor by men, and that he adds his amen to this, as everyone in the parking lot at Costco can now see."
Actually, the correct quotation is Matthew 7.20: "Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them" but knowing the low, coarse minds of many of the regulars here I was trying to avoid the usual jokes about "fruits"! Anyway, in this case I am actually referring to Chinese 'fruits', or to be precise, the first signs of real action by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) following their recent plenary meeting, prior to which, everyone and his unlce was trying to guess what they would do but nobody knew for certain. Well, now we have the first concrete shift in public policy, henceforth the restrictions of the 'one child only' policy are to be carefully lifted. This does not indicate any softening in the hearts of those who occupy the ruling seats in the CCP but merely their recognition of some seriously worrying statistics for the future. (As a side-thought, I suppose that one advantage dictatorships have over democracies is that the ruling elite are in power long enough to have time to think long-term, so unlike 'Dim Dave' and his ilk who can think no further ahead than tomorrow's headlines!)
Here, via the WSJ, is the problem facing the CCP as it faces the future:
China's working-age population—those ages 15 to 64—is drastically shrinking: From 2010 to 2030, China's labor force is expected to lose 67 million workers—more than the entire population of France—according to United Nations projections.
Over that period, the elderly population is projected to soar, from 110 million in 2010 to 210 million in 2030, and by 2050 will account for a quarter of the population, according to U.N. data.
China's population, the world's largest, rose to 1.34 billion in 2010, according to census data. It had been projected to peak at around 1.4 billion in 10 years but decline for the next 30, said Mr. Wang.
Please read the whole fascinating article for more detail but in the meantime I was struck by the implications for this country. Here, too, as I understand it, under no compulsion from the government, the indigident population is failing to do its, er, 'duty' regularly on a Saturday night, perhaps due to a superfluity of ale, or, perhaps because modern ladies are too concerned about their figures; whatever, the end reult is a gradual reduction in reproduction rates across western Europe. Given that, perhaps our immigration policy is no bad thing. According to various 'scare' stories in the media our population is increasing rapidly as eastern Europe, so to speak, flows across to western Europe. Well, say I, bring 'em on but just make sure the buggers pay their taxes in order to keep us pensioners in the style to which we feel we are entitled!
In a post down belowI ventured into the dangerous and, for me, unchartered waters of the case of Marine 'A' recently found guilty of executing a Taliban fighter in cold blood. That very brief summary of what was, perhaps, in reality a much more muddled and untidy incident is just the synopsis of what I gathered from the media. I do not wish to be entangled with the particulars of that case, instead I want to discuss the broader matters of principle which arise from it. In particular, my e-pal, 'Able', raises some contradictory points - yes, I know, bloody cheek, contradicting ME! - which require a longer response than is suitable for a comments thread.
For a start, I think we have both wandered too far into the legal intricacies of the guiding spirit behind the Geneva Convention and all the other international agreements which attempt to guide civilised behaviour in the very uncivilised business of making war. It is not, I think, a question of whether paragraph 6, sub-paragraph b., does or does not specify this or that particular. It is necessary for soldiers to think at a deeper level - and if they find that difficult it is for their commanders to do their thinking for them and instil the results into their soldiers' minds and discipline.
Surely the basis for thinking on moral issues must be Christianity - and I write that as confirmed agnostic who has no views either way on the existence of God or the divinity of Jesus Christ. However, it is the bedrock of western civilisation as it has evolved over the past two millennia. It is, of course, a creed or a philosophy "more honoured in the breech than the observance" but that does not detract from its moral power. In fact, I would rate it highly as a guide not just for its moral power but for its acute intelligence! The undoubted fact that it is diminishing in influence is, I think, a disaster but that is another story.
The very essence of its teaching in regard to civil behaviour is that human life is always and forever - precious! I am not sure, as some Christian pacifists are, that it forbids the taking of life under any circumstances, and that is certainly not what a pro-capital punishment advocate like me believes. However, I do put the emphasis on the word "precious", in other words, I do think the circumstances under which human beings will be killed requires very careful consideration.
(At this point, alas, I must pause because I am, so to speak, under starter's orders to take the 'Memsahib' out for shopping and lunch. I will return later this afternoon and try and finish this post. I leave it up in this unfinished state to give you all time to marshal your thoughts.)
Right, where was I before I was so rudely interrupted? Ah yes, not the sanctity of human life because that is a concept too far for me but its inherent and precious value. It is a variation on the same argument I use when arguing against abortion, that is, although the entity is just a bunch of pulsating cells, nevertheless, it is its potentiality which is valuable. I repeat, I am not against the taking of human life but it must be done in certain specific situations which, I would add, does not include a casual shot in the head of an unarmed and wounded opponent in a dusty field in Afghanistan.
To bring the argument back to the strictly military, I would also like to raise the ideal of 'The Warrior Code' which is a folorn and tattered concept these days when, as I pointed out a few posts back, you can kill people a zillion miles away whilst sitting at your desk in front of a computer. Even so, I believe that the remnants of a Warrior Code do still exist and it is the duty of officers in a 'Christian' country to impress their troops with it. The essence of it is not to 'love thine enemy' but 'respect thine enemy'. A glaring example of where this lack of a Warrior Code was evident was in Vietnam where the American troops had a variety of insulting epithets with which they dismissed their Viet Cong opponents - who then went on to beat them hands down! Similar language has been used by British troops in describing their Afghani opponents and they, too, were thrashed!
Of course, the world is filled with very different societies, albeit, they are all peopled with human beings despite their habits and beliefs being the very opposite of what a Christian-based army would think right and proper. (To be strictly accurate, of course, I am referring to a modern Christian-based army of today. Go back a few centuries and their equivalents would not seem out of place with the worst of the worst!) From everything I have seen and heard concerning the Afghani warriors (I use the word deliberately) they are incredibly hardy, tough, ruthless, cruel, determined and brave beyond words. If our soldiers were imbued with the concept of the Warrior Code they, or at least some of them, would not despise their foes but respect them for their courage even as they killed them in combat. The fact that the enemy does not share the Warrior Code is neither here nor there - we fight on our terms, they fight on theirs!
Before I began this post this morning I listened to a fascinating discussion on Radio 4 on the subject of Shakespeare's last solo play, The Tempest. Perhaps one of the most mysterious characters he invented was the half-, sub-, or maybe fully, human occupant of the mysterious island, Caliban. It was interesting to hear how directors over the centuries have altered their views on how Caliban should be portrayed. In earlier times he was considered half-man, half-monster. Today, groaning under their (supposed!) guilt for colonial crimes of the past, directors have Caliban played as a native human who stands for downtrodden, exploited slavery. I'm not convinced by that but at least he is treated as human and it is noteworthy that Prospero, who was the intended victim of a murder plot by Caliban and his cronies, does not have him executed. Perhaps another piece of Shakespeare sums it up best:
The quality of mercy is not strain'd, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes: 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest:
As we all know only too well, they always do things bigger 'over there' and that includes things like going to war, sending men into space and carefully constructing astronomically huge government cock-ups! The unmitigated disaster that is 'Obamacare' cannot be described by the usual cliché as a 'train crash' because it is on far too grand a scale for such a simple metaphor. It is more like collecting every single one of those giant, mile-long trains they go in for 'over there' and hurling them into the Grand Canyon. Oh-oh, Duff's on one again, you are probably muttering; he's splashing about in his usual hyperbole, take no notice. Maybe, after all, why should I change the habit of a lifetime? But consider these quite extraordinary events.
First of all the President of the United States has admitted to repeatedly telling a lie. Of course, telling lies goes with the job but admitting to it is unprecedented! Then, yesterday, we had a previous President of the United States, and a member of the same political party as the current office-holder, telling him that he must find ways and means of undoing the current law in order that those lies are made truth! Now, as we all know, when it comes to lying ex-President Clinton (for it was he!) is something of an expert and Obama would do well to listen. If he doesn't, then dozens? scores? hundreds? of Democrat Congressmen fearful of the voters' revenge at next year's election will, whilst hiding behind President Clinton, find the 'courage' to start hollerin' for Obama to put right his lying lies!
Of course, it is only a matter of time before babies start dying because their parents' medical insurance, which Obama had promised they could keep, was in fact cancelled leaving them with no cover because they could not afford the increased premiums. There is nothing like a few dying babies whose deaths can be laid at the door of lying politicians to whip up real fury in the populace. Who knows, perhaps even the editorial boards of the 'Obama Trumpet' in New York and the 'Washington Agit-Post' might sit up and take notice.
What is absolutely crucial now is for the Republicans to set aside their internal quarrels and get their act together by starting a steady, concerted, even monotonous, chant of "We Told You So! We Told You So!" Who knows, perhaps that might just win them control of both Houses next year.
Yes, indeed, dear reader, you always get 'double-bubble' here at D&N!
The first 'Triple Corker' is on BBC1 tonight at midnight - so set your recorders! It is the film Cabaret and it is one of the very best films ever made! I'm sure you've all seen it before but it is so brilliant that you can return to it time and again. What Bob Fosse did for the bowler hat industry is worth an award on its own!
The second 'Triple Corker' is Trust Your Eyesfrom the thriller writer, Linwood Barclay. I have rated him highly before but this one 'out-corkers' the rest. It has within it two seperate plot lines and I can tell you that the final 'twist of twists' is on the very last page! How he manages to hang onto the thread of these two convoluted stories I just do not know but I suspect he would be a very able three-dimensional chess player!
The book is on offer at Amazon for only £3.85 so after you have set your recording-thingie for Cabaret tonight get on to them!
Richard North makes a considered point this morning which, on the face of it, seems right but which, alas, I think fails on closer scrutiny. He is concerned with the fate of Marine 'A' who, apparently, shot dead an injured Taliban soldier. It appeared to be - and here I emphasise that I am not in full possession of all the facts - to be a fairly cold-blooded action. By that, I mean that the shooting did not take place in the heat of battle because there was some calm discussion between him and his fellow marines before he pulled the trigger. I'm not saying he wasn't emotional because, according to reports (which I had never heard reported before), the Taliban were in the habit of hanging body parts of British soldiers from trees as a sort of triumphant propaganda message. Anyway, there is absolutely no doubt that Marine 'A' pulled the trigger. He has now been found guilty of murder and is due for sentencing this week. Various media outlets have been insisting that he should receive the severest sentence. So far, I have only seen or read one man pleading for a lenient sentence and that was Col. Tim Collins who has an active service record that demands respect for his views which I urge you to read.
Richard North dismisses the outcry over Marine 'A's action reminding us, correctly, alas, that murder of enemy wounded "has been a feature of every major war in which British soldiers have served". In his view, if this sort of thing is going to be the subject of legal action in British courts then greater care should be taken to hide the evidence! However, he then goes on to make a wider point:
But, when it comes to high-ranking soldiers and the rule of law, such as the duty of care when it comes to sending out troops in substandard vehicles, we see the same newspaper [The Telegraph] fielding Charles Moore to tell us that, "If there is a risk of litigation and even prosecution, how can commanders make proper decisions on the ever-changing battlefield?"
Methinks we're seeing a little hypocrisy here. Certainly, "commanders" can't have it both ways.
If Her Majesty's Armed Forces are held to have a duty to uphold the rule of law, then they cannot pick and choose which laws are upheld. The law should be the law, and where senior officers needlessly expose the troops in their charge to unnecessary danger, then they too should be held to account for their actions in a court of law.
What's sauce for the soldier, one might say, is sauce for the commander.
Here, I think, Richard North is referring mainly (but not exclusively) to the so-called 'snatch Landrovers', thin-skinned and unprotected vehicles, which were developed for operations in urban Ulster but which were deployed in Afghanistan with horrifying results, not the least being, presumably, the providing of even more British body parts for the enemy! He believes that if the likes of Marine 'A' is to stand trial then so, too, should sundry Brigadiers and Generals for failing in their 'duty of care' to their own troops. Alas, in an ideal world, maybe! But in the real world, in real war, the decision-making process is too diffuse ever to allow the pointing of fingers at any one particular officer. You only have to contemplate for a few moments the less-than-grand history of British army cock-ups which even the historians afterwards are divided over whom to blame.
"Be Prepared", I understand is the motto of the Boy Scouts which provided some predictable and ribald commentary in barracks as we set off on Saturday nights to beautiful (not!) downtown Aldershot back in the day! But I digress - again. What we might call 'the boy scouts' of the City of London are definitely preparing themselves by holding a 'cyber attack exercise' today. According to Reuters, as reported by Interactive Investor:
Thousands of staff across dozens of London's financial firms will be put through a "war game" scenario on Tuesday to test how well they can handle a major cyber attack.
In one of the largest exercises of its kind in the world, the test dubbed "Waking Shark II" will bombard firms with a series of announcements and scenarios, such as a major attack on computer systems hitting stock exchanges and unfolding on social media.
It will be co-ordinated from a single room housing regulators, government officials and staff from banks and other financial firms, people familiar with the matter said.
I hope, nay, I pray, that the government officials concerned learn the lessons and make every effort to ready the governmental machine for similar attacks. I don't think 99% of the population, which includes me, have the remotest idea of the catastrophic - and I choose the word carefully - implications of a fierce cyber attack bringing down our national computer systems. Frankly, my mind boggles but I just hope those with responsibility can and will think their way through to incorporate sensible defensive measures. Yeah, yeah, I know it's government but a man may hope, may he not?
How very true and Rick Moran at The American Thinker provides a delicious example in the somewhat unlovely form of Ms. Lori Gottleib. She was born and raised in Beverley Hills, California, and I assume that this unfortunate environment led her to view the world through Hollywood spectacles - which would be enough to leave anyone short-sighted and cross-eyed! Anyway, it certainly left Ms. Gottlieb leaning way over to the Left and into the arms of the Democrat party where she has become an ardent supporter and propogandist writing for various media outlets including the 'Obama Trumpet', or, the New York Times as it sometimes called.
Alas, poor Ms. Gottleib, that rotten, old, real world just poked her in the eye with a sharp stick, or to be accurate, slapped her across the face with a new medical insurance contract issued under the new nirvana of The Great Leader. Ms. Gottleib was shocked, I tell you, shocked:
THE Anthem Blue Cross representative who answered my call told me that there was a silver lining in the cancellation of my individual P.P.O. policy and the $5,400 annual increase that I would have to pay for the Affordable Care Act-compliant option: now if I have Stage 4 cancer or need a sex-change operation, I'd be covered regardless of pre-existing conditions. Never mind that the new provider network would eliminate coverage for my and my son's long-term doctors and hospitals.
The Anthem rep cheerily explained that despite the company's -- I paraphrase -- draconian rates and limited network, my benefits, which also include maternity coverage (handy for a 46-year-old), would "be actually much richer."
So, what can a lonely, hurt Lefty do when she has been badly let down by The Glorious Leader? Well, share your pain with your other Lefty friends and comrades, I suppose:
"Obamacare or Kafkacare?" I posted on Facebook as soon as I hung up with Anthem. I vented about the call and wrote that the president should be protecting the middle class, not making our lives substantially harder. For extra sympathy, I may have thrown in the fact that I'm a single mom. (O.K., I did.)
Then I sat back and waited for the love to pour in. Or at least the "like." Lots of likes. After all, I have 1,037 Facebook friends. Surely, they'd commiserate.
"Surely, they'd commiserate"! Oh dear, 46-years old and still as thick as a sack of spanners - heh! that's Hollywood for you!
Instead, aside from my friend David, who attempted to cheer me up with, "My dad, who never turns down a bargain, would take the sex change just because it's free," my respondents implied -- in posts that, to my annoyance, kept getting more "likes" -- that it was beyond uncool to be whining about myself when the less fortunate would finally have insurance.
"The nation has been better off," wrote one friend. "Over 33 million people who did not have insurance are now going to get it." That's all fine and good for "the nation," but what about my $5,400 rate hike (after-tax dollars, I wanted to add, but dared not in this group of previously closeted Mother Teresas)? Another friend wrote, "Yes, I'm paying an extra 200 a month, but I'm okay with doing that so that others who need it can have health care."
I was shocked. Who knew my friends were such humanitarians? Has Obamacare made it un-P.C. to be concerned by a serious burden on my family's well-being?
Ah well, as I have remarked before on this blog, it's an exceedingly ill wind that doesn't blow someone on their arse and into a pile of manure for the amusement of the rest of us!
As the WSJ reports, exceptions are being made for the huge class of German neighbourhood banks, called Sparkassen, whose gross wealth is around the €1 trillion level:
Germany's public savings banks have become the most powerful little lenders in the world, exploiting their political clout to punch loopholes into Europe's postcrisis banking laws. [...]
In late-night negotiations last December, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble ensured that day-to-day supervision of all but one of the 417 Sparkassen—the largest, the Hamburger Sparkasse is the exception—will remain in German hands, even when the European Central Bank becomes the euro zone's banking policeman next year.
Because these banks are very local they produce a great stream of income for local authorities and politicians, thus, there has been no arguments in the German political classes about the necessity of protecting their little milch-cows from those nasty men in Brussels:
As soon as the proposal was made, German members of the European Parliament sprang into action. They maneuvered themselves into the powerful negotiator positions in all four major parties—from the far left to the conservatives—and rewrote the bill so the Sparkassen rescue mechanism could remain separate.
"You cannot put a sheet of paper between me" and the Socialist negotiator on the bill, Burkhard Balz, a representative for German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative party, told the Danish diplomat who was leading the talks for EU member states. Mr. Balz confirmed the tenor of his comments.
So, given that, Dave, dare one ask how well you did in protecting British banks?
Oh, as good as that! Best not ask for details, then.
A wet, windy, chilly morning so these will cheer you up no end - and if you really believe that can I interest you in a one, old lady owner Mondeo with only six thou on the clock?
I was sitting with the computer the other day drafting my will and I called out to my wife, "WHEN I DIE I'M GOING TO LEAVE EVERYTHING TO YOU, LOVE!"
She shouted back, "YOU ALREADY DO, YOU LAZY BASTARD !!”
A woman was in town on a shopping trip. She began her day finding the most perfect shoes in the first shop and a beautiful dress on sale in the second. In the third, everything had just been reduced by 50 percent - and then her mobile phone rang.
It was a female doctor notifying her that her husband had just been in a terrible car accident and was in critical condition and in the ICU.
The woman told the doctor to inform her husband where she was and that she'd be there as soon as possible. As she hung up she realized she was leaving what was shaping up to be her best day ever in the boutiques. She decided to get in a couple of more shops before heading to the hospital.
She ended up shopping the rest of the morning, finishing her trip with a cup of coffee and a beautiful chocolate cake slice, compliments of the last shop. She was jubilant.
Then she remembered her husband. Feeling guilty, she dashed to the hospital.
She saw the doctor in the corridor and asked about her husband's condition. The lady doctor glared at her and shouted, 'You went ahead and finished your shopping trip didn't you! I hope you're proud of yourself! While you were out for the past four hours enjoying yourself in town, your husband has been languishing in the Intensive Care Unit! It's just as well you went ahead and finished, because it will more than likely be the last shopping trip you ever take! For the rest of his life he will require round-the-clock care. And YOU will now be his carer!'
The woman was feeling so guilty she broke down and sobbed.
The lady doctor then chuckled and said, 'I'm just pulling your leg. He's dead. Show me what you bought.'
A couple made a deal that whoever died first would come back and let the other know if there was an afterlife.
After a long life together, the husband was the first to die. True to his word, he made the first contact.
“Marion …. Marion.”
“Is that you, Bob?”
“Yes, I’ve come back like we agreed.”
“That’s wonderful. What’s it like?”
“Well, I get up in the morning. I have sex. I have breakfast and then it’s off to the golf course. I have sex again, bathe in the warm sun and then have sex a couple more times. After supper, it’s back to the golf course again. Then it’s more sex until late at night. I catch some much-needed sleep and then the next day it starts all over again.”
“Oh Bob! So, you’re in heaven?”
“No. I’m a rabbit somewhere near Sunningdale Golf Course.”
All courtesy of the Australian Joke Factory - so blame her not me!
NO, we shall NOT remember them: What the vast majority of us will do today is buy a poppy when the tin is shaken under our nose, perhaps briefly think of a long-dead relative we never really knew because we were too young when he was around, switch channels rapidly when we find our usual Sunday morning programmes filled with scenes from the Cenotaph and then get off down the pub to watch the Arsenal play Man United on the 'telly'. Not, mind you, that I think this is wrong; it is, so to speak, 'in the way of things'. To go too far in the opposite direction and to have state encouragement for a sort of hysterical, orchestrated, national 'wail-in' would be positively North Korean!
"Blow, wind and crack your cheeks": Thus, shouted that mad, stupid but brave, old man, Lear, as he waved his puny fists at a pitiless cosmos. I doubt many of the pitiable people in south east Asia had time for that as they struggled to survive the hurricane/tornado that 'blasted their particular heath'. Still, as the political saying goes, it's an ill-emergency that doesn't blow someone something good and the Warm Greenie Slimes are already at it, according M' Lord 'Bishop' Hill:
Jamie Henn of 350.org calls the storm a wake-up call for the upcoming UN climate summit. Simon Redfern in the Mirror says we should expect more such storms in future.
'Bishop' Hill quickly deposits that in the dustbin for recycled lies:
Meanwhile, we learn of this 2004 paleoclimate reconstruction of hurricane landfalls in South-eastern China. The conclusions seem to contradict the wild claims of the drama greens more than somewhat:
Remarkably, the two periods of most frequent typhoon strikes in Guangdong (AD 1660–1680, 1850–1880) coincide with two of the coldest and driest periods in northern and central China during the Little Ice Age.
Barroso gains an 'F' in European history: And so the President of the European Commission demonstrates his ignorance of European and Churchillian history by suggesting that Churchill's words in 1948 indicated the great man's wish for Britain to be part of a new, united Europe. Oddly enough, I had just passed that particular episode in Richard Holmes's superb single-volume biography of Churchill and in it he makes clear that whilst Churchill wanted Europe to coalesce in a union of sovereign states he had no intention that Britain should join it. The normally acerbic Richard North is surprisingly restrained in pointing this out to 'President' Barroso, giving him the equivalent of fifty lines instead of sending him to the headmaster for six of the best!
Corky again - and again: I found 'Corky Again' some time ago but in my stumble-thumb way I lost him whilst tidying up my 'favourites' folder - see, as I never stop telling the 'Memsahib' when she moans about the state of my garret, too much tidying is a disaster in the making! Anyway, I re-found (is that a word?) 'Corky Again' just recently and his current post is worth a read if you are feeling in a philosophical mood today. 'Corky' is that rarity, a man who can write on the complexities of philosophy in plain English.
Bits and bobs: That's 'bobs' as in the old English expression for a shilling piece. The 'bits' is the English expression for a new currency called 'BitCoin'. This 'currency' exists only in the imagination, or the internet, as some people call it! Even so, this 'figment of someone's imagination' has risen to $325 which is enough to give me pause. I cannot explain it to you but you may visit HERE and HERE and the writers concerned will partially lift the veil. As far as I am concerned the main attraction of 'BitCoin' is that it operates completely outside the control of any government - for the moment, anyway!
Talking of old wars: Which I was doing in my opening 'rumble', I have finally got round to starting a book on another old and famous (infamous, perhaps?) war about which I know very little - The American Civil War by the late John Keegan. I only read the Introduction and before I even reached Chaper One I was already groaning in anguish. Just like WWI and WWII, there was an awful inevitability about it. Those three usual rascals were involved - Principle, Politics and Money! Nothing was going to solve the impasse except that great leveller - War. "Oh, the pity of it!"
An American takes an outside look at America:
"O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us/ To see oursels as ithers see us!" Thus, spake 'Rabbie' Burns over 200 years ago and that, more or less is what Thomas L Friedman is begging his fellow Americans to pray for. He quotes another American observer who like him is a frequent visitor to Singapore and who recognised that "you know that all the modernity and prosperity you see here [in Singapore] is not based on natural resources but on a natural resourcefulness". That used to be the proud boast of the USA but as Friedman points out, "[H]ow could the people who gave us Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, IBM, HP and Google not be able to build a workable health care website? I know it had 5 million users, but there are 48 million Indonesians on Facebook!" Worth reading!
NEW COMMENT POLICY: Dealing with this spam attack is tiresome! I cut down the time interval at which I would accept comments from 6 months to one month but they still managed to sneak them into posts which were about three weeks old so now I have stopped accepting comments after two weeks! So, if you have anything to say, say it quick! If that works and the spams fall off I will extend the 'opening hours', as it were, back to where they were. I have asked TypePad if it is possible for commenters to request that they be placed on an 'approved list' so that the spams can be stopped at source. I await an answer. If it is negative then I might adopt the system used by others of not printing comments until I have approved them - which I am reluctant to do because it rather spoils the sponteneity. Anyway, for the moment, two weeks and then the comments on any particular post will close.
Who's sorry now, who's sorry now Whose heart is achin' for breakin' each vow Who's sad and blue, who's cryin' too Just like I cried over you
Right to the end just like a friend I tried to warn you somehow You had your way, now you must pay I'm glad that you're sorry now.
I'm not sure "who's heart is achin' for breakin' each vow" the most. Either it's the President's or maybe it's the New York Times' editorial board (about whom I wrote recently) along with most of the lying liars who constitute the American media, or the agit-prop branch of the Democrat party, as I prefer to think of them. There they all were, like an operatic chorus of hags screeching that their beloved president did not lie when he said, "If you want to keep your healthcare plan then you can". Remember, he said it not once,not twice, not thrice but twenty-nine times! But no, according to the careful parsing of the media he merely "misspoke".
Thus, was 'el Presidente' surrounded and protected by his praetorian guard in the media. But then the ninny went and blew it! On TV the other night he apologised for doing what his chorus had insisted he didn't do, that is, lying through his teeth! There is a certain amount of amusement to be derived from watching some of these poltroons in the press attempt journalistic acrobatics, or watch others, like the NYT, strike a pose of haughty denial by refusing even to report the President's confession and apology.
There is a temptation, I confess, to enjoy a snigger at all those suckers 'over there' who voted this dangerous dimwit into office but, alas, it is easier to weep at their folly and ask "who's cryin' now?"
Regular readers may remember that a year or so back I suffered with a dose of Sino-situs ("Oh, very witty, Wilde!") in which I did my best to get to grips with events in China. After a while I gave up because it slowly dawned on me that nobody knew what was going on and we would only find out after the event or events.
Even so, it is worth recording that, as my trusty agents at NightWatch report:
The third plenary session of the 18th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party convened on 8 November. In its report announcing the opening of the four-day meeting in Beijing, state news agency Xinhua said it would discuss "major issues concerning comprehensively deepening reforms".
Well, I don't suppose they're going to sit around discussing whether Man United will beat the Arsenal this weekend even if it is true, as we are told, that several zillion Chinese talk of little else these days! Even so, my reading of that quotation indicates that the reporter hasn't a clue! My trusty NightWatchers attempt to cast alight on proceedings with this:
Comment: Senior Chinese officials have hinted that this meeting will discuss and decide significant social and economic reforms, such as more liberal market conditions and more measures to reduce official corruption. In the past two weeks, authorities also have made clear that political reform is not on the agenda.
In other words, they haven't a clue, either! However, something big is going on, or at least, trying to go on, as the new leadership, realising that the truly 'Great Leap Forward' that took place after Mao's death has now run its course. State-controlled capitalism is an oxymoron. It will take you some way down the road to prosperity particularly if you started from the wasteland of state Marxism, but sooner or later you will realise that the very essence of capitalism is that it is self-correcting. This self-correcting process can occur in a myriad of tiny changes barely noticed by the population or in a catastrophic boom/bust, but whichever way it occurs it is crucial that it does happen. The alternative is economic schlerosis! Absolute rule by politicians and their bureaucratic party lackeys, nearly all of whom have vested, not to say invested, interests will sooner or later strangle the golden goose.
If the current Chinese leadership think they can achieve real change by tinkering at the edges or simply producing windy rhetoric they are fooling themselves and sooner or later they will 'reap the whirlwind'! But moving from strict one-party dictatorship to democracy is the most dangerous high-wire trick in the circus. Can they do it? Do they really want to try to do it? I don't know, do you?
Well, it would make a change, don't you think? But of course, I don't mean a military attack, I mean a political-economic attack and the' battlefield' as so often in European history will be "plucky little Belgium", or to be precise, Brussels. Today, France was downgraded by Standard & Poors which is simply recognising the total merde into which France has been led by the now rather ridiculous Hollande. However, before readying the guillotine for the poor fool we should look further afield,according to Ambrose E-P in The Telegraph, who suggests that fingers should be pointed past Brussels, across the north German plains all the way to Brandenburg-Prussia and its capital, Berlin.
As I have mentioned before, austerity in Europe which leads to a weak euro currency suits Berlin down to the ground. Its exports thrive, indeed, they have done so well that even Obama, his recent embarrassment over listening in to Frau Merkel's personal 'phone as quickly forgotten as his recent 'hugbunny' visit to the Brandenburg Gate, has begun to whinge about it in public. I don't remember a US president of recent times attacking Germany in public. Anyway, as Ambrose E-P reminds us today, and as the late Lord Ridley forecast 23 years ago, the EU is "a German racket designed to take over the whole of Europe". He, of course, was in effect sacked - for being dead right! But the situation now is growing perilous. I always thought that it would be Italy that brought down the EU but now it really could be France according to Ambrose E-P:
This is the nub of the matter. The central tenet of EMU doctrine is that countries will not reform unless they face a crisis, and their feet are held to the fire. There is a near religious belief in Berlin – evangelised by Brussels, and the EMU gang of five – that any let up in austerity, any recourse to stimulus, let alone a new deal, is a gift to shirkers who want to dodge reform.
Will the French really hang on as first their toes and then their feet go up in flames? Or will they, as Ambrose E-P suggests, lead the way for the southern Med nations to defy Berlin and Brussels?
It is not too late for Hollande to avoid this horrible political fate. He can at any time pluck up courage, forge a grand reflation coalition, and bring Brussels to heel. He is the elected leader of a great nation. EU officials are just civil servants.
This means confronting Germany, of course. But that fight has to come, as Paris Professor Steve Ohana lays out in his new book “Désobéir pour sauver l’Europe”. France must revolt to save Europe, and only France can lead such a coalition.
Echoing the potential for a major shift in policy over here if UKIP win big in next year's European elections, the political ground will really shift in France if Marie le Pen and her National Front party do the same in France. So come on, chaps, all together now - vive La France!
Not when it is this particular book of whose imminent publication I warned you some time ago. Happily, I am saved the bother of actually reading the wretched thing before I rush off for the petrol and the matches because someone else has read it for me. Mr. Sam Kriss at The New Inquiry has earned my gratitude by not only reading the ghastly thing but also writing a superb and stinging critique. His essay is suitably entitled "Book of Lamentations" and as he takes us gently through the vast, winding, inverted corridors of mirrors that go to make up this book one can see how appropriate it is. Allow me to give you his second paragraph which will give you the flavour of his criticism:
Great dystopia isn’t so much fantasy as a kind of estrangement or dislocation from the present; the ability to stand outside time and see the situation in its full hideousness. The dystopian novel doesn’t necessarily have to be a novel. Maybe the greatest piece of dystopian literature ever written is Theodor Adorno’s Minima Moralia, a collection of observations and aphorisms penned by the philosopher while in exile in America during and after the Second World War. Even if, like I do, you disagree enthusiastically with his blanket condemnation of all “degenerated” popular culture, it’s hard not to be convinced that what we are living is “damaged life.” It’s not an argument so much as revelation. In Adorno’s bitterly lucid critique everything we take for “The libidinal achievements demanded of an individual behaving as healthy in body and mind are such as can be performed only at the cost of the profoundest mutilation … the regular guy, the popular girl, have to repress not only their desires and insights, but even the symptoms that in bourgeois times resulted from repression.” – Minima Moralia granted is suddenly revealed in all its hideousness. The world Adorno lives in isn’t quite the same as ours; he’s coming at his subjects from a reflex angle – they’re a bunch of average Joes and Janes, he’s a misanthropic German cultural theorist with a preternaturally spherical head – but his insights are all the more relevant because of this. Something has gone terribly wrong in the world; we are living the wrong life, a life without any real fulfillment. The newly published DSM-5 is a classic dystopian novel in this mold.
And there, right at the end of his second paragraph he gives you the title of the 'novel' he is reviewing - DSM-5. The numeral at the end indicates correctly that there have been four previous 'novels' in this genre, almost as though Lewis Carroll had written 'Alice Through the Looking Glass: Part I, II, III, IV and V'. In fact, judging by Mr. Kriss's review there are some distinct similarities between this 'novel' and those of Lewis Carroll.
This book, like its four predecessors, is a truly evil book. It is the 'go to' manual for all the Nurse Ratcheds of this world and their white-coated supervisors. Perhaps the most evil thing about it is the in-built certainty and pretend scientism that these practitioners of gobbledegook insist is factual. The psychobabblers are the medical equivalent of the global warming non-scientist sect. This book should be burnt and if I hear so much as a squeak from Nurse Ratched she can be flung on the fire, too!
I was going to begin with an apology to you all for preaching an incorrect sermon but then I remembered that none of you pay the slightest attention to anything I write or say so there's no need! However, some of you may recall that from time to time I have become very irate at the lack of ideology in any of our frontline politicians. None of them seem to be doing the job in order to achieve something greater than themselves which leaves one with the large suspicion that they are only in it for the money or for some peculiar psychiatric imperative in their personalities. However, today I find myself taken to task by the supporters of the late Michael Oakeshott.
As it happens, Oakeshott, himself, is a fairly regular twinge in my conscience because I have never read a word he wrote and yet everywhere people speak highly of him as a true conservative (small 'c') philosopher. His particular view of true conservatism has been taken up by Peter Wehner in Commentary. He, of course, being American is beset with the shrill, poisonous, vindictive atmosphere of today's political scene 'over there'. He uses Oakeshott's opinions to warn his fellow conservatives concerning what he considers to be there errors of judgment in partaking of this monumental 'bitch fight':
he lapse into ideology is a perennial danger for conservatism (and for any political and religious movement, for that matter). The temptations of those of us who are committed to a political and religious philosophy/cause, always, is confirmation bias; that we go in search of facts to support pre-existing views; and that we self-segregate and inhabit a closed mental world in which we simply don’t allow counter-arguments and contrary empirical data to penetrate the walls we erect. We simply refuse to hold up our views to refinement and revision.
Well, that is true, of course, but it is not an argument that would convince me to dispense with ideology. At this point I am forced to quote the late Prof. Joad who regularly began his counter-arguments with the phrase 'it all depends on what you mean by . . .' and here I would insert the word 'ideology' - see, "words, words, words"! I would suggest that everyone has an 'ideology' but the line between that somewhat abstract ideal and the bricks and mortar of 'policy' is very fine. I would suggest that the notion that 'I do not believe in any ideology' is, in fact, an ideology! I would go further and suggest that it is totally untrue! Everyone has an ideology in some sense of the word, by which I mean that everyone has their own, albeit rough and ready, idea of what the world is now, what they would like it to be and what it could be if certain measures were taken. And it is around about this point that one shuffles across the line between ideology and policy.
So, coming back to the real world, I want my politicians to have an ideology. I want them to point to a distant vision that for the moment only they can see so that I might inspect it and either approve or not. I don't mind if they don't quite get there - that's the real world intruding - but I do want to see them trying. So, sorry and all that, Prof. Oakeshott, but I'm right and you're wrong! (I can say that to an immensely distinguished philosophical swot because he's dead!) Read Wehner's article, it's worth it.
I have just watched the first public parliamentary questioning of the bosses of our three intelligence agencies. I confess to being impressed - with them, that is, not with some of the donkeys on the committee. That red-haired chipmunk, Heather Blears, chirruped away to absolutely no point or purpose and George Howarth proved that he is as thick as he looks! Who votes for these people?
George Howarth Heather Blears
Mind you, for the purposes of informing the public I am delighted to say that it was a complete waste of oxygen because the whole thing was a PR exercise but exactly whose public relations were really involved I do not know. However, the spooks had their opportunity - and took it! - to lambast 'The Graun', a non-newspaper that would have difficulty spelling the words 'national interest' let alone understanding them.
Actually, I shall sleep a little easier in my bed tonight - not that I have much difficulty anyway - knowing that those three quietly impressive and rather tough-looking men were running organisations dedicated to keeping me and mine (and you and yours) safe. Not the least of their virtues on display today was their impassioned defence of, and high praise for, not themselves but for their dedicated staff. So, well done the spooks and spookettes, keep up your good work.
Sky News has been intermittently irritating me this morning with constant repetitions of footage from outer space showing some 'Russkies' proudly locking their spacecraft onto that great waste of space ('Very witty, Wilde!') and eye-wateringly expensive space lab that circles our planet for no particular reason that I have been able to fathom. They bring with them what they obviously believe to be a most valuable icon of our times - an Olympic torch! Apparently, they intend to go outside their spaceship and cavort around with it. At that point my most malicious and vindictive thoughts will be lasered directly at them through space because I hope, nay, I pray - they drop the bloody thing! Oh come on, where's your sense of humour? Can you imagine that 'priceless'(!) relic ever so slowly but inexorably cartwheeling away from the outstretched fingers of the Russian astronaut as he begins to make the sort of excuses that English slip-fielders make when they drop a dolly! Oh, my giddy aunt, I would pay good money to see that.
The other great sporting question of the day, or to be accurate, of next year, is whether or not we can rely on the residents of the barrios in Brazil to, er, 'kick off' on one when footie's World Cup starts next year. Apparently, they have been playing some 'practice matches' before the main event by rioting and shooting sundry policemen as a means of expressing their displeasure that ga-zillions are being spent on this ridiculous circus mounted to the greater glory (and wealth) of Herr Sepp Blatter, President of FIFA. I must say that our very own, home grown 'youfs and youfettes' let me down badly during the London Olympics when I fully expected at least three full riots to put the kybosh on the whole ridiculous, puffed-up nonsense that it has become.
So, meus amigos in Brazil, I am looking to you to keep a grumpy old man happy in England by staging some world class 'bovver'. In particular, and here I anticipate, I know, but if our English footie team is playing please keep your eyes open for any groups of fans obviously drunk (irrespective of the time of day) and with unhealthily white skins covered in tattoos and sporting bellies the like of which you will never have seen in your Brazilian slums. If you see them . . . well, what can I say? . . . do feel free, that's all!
Here's a piece of first-class writing by Matthew Power in GQ News on a subject that both fascinates and repels. I will quote the opening paragraphs without cuts or paraphrasing because the writing is terrific and evocative:
From the darkness of a box in the Nevada desert, he watched as three men trudged down a dirt road in Afghanistan. The box was kept cold—precisely sixty-eight degrees—and the only light inside came from the glow of monitors. The air smelled spectrally of stale sweat and cigarette smoke. On his console, the image showed the midwinter landscape of eastern Afghanistan’s Kunar Province—a palette of browns and grays, fields cut to stubble, dark forests climbing the rocky foothills of the Hindu Kush. He zoomed the camera in on the suspected insurgents, each dressed in traditional shalwar kameez, long shirts and baggy pants. He knew nothing else about them: not their names, not their thoughts, not the thousand mundane and profound details of their lives.
He was told that they were carrying rifles on their shoulders, but for all he knew, they were shepherd’s staffs. Still, the directive from somewhere above, a mysterious chain of command that led straight to his headset, was clear: confirmed weapons. He switched from the visible spectrum—the muted grays and browns of “day-TV”—to the sharp contrast of infrared, and the insurgents’ heat signatures stood out ghostly white against the cool black earth. A safety observer loomed behind him to make sure the “weapon release” was by the book. A long verbal checklist, his targeting laser locked on the two men walking in front. A countdown—three…two…one…—then the flat delivery of the phrase “missile off the rail.” Seventy-five hundred miles away, a Hellfire flared to life, detached from its mount, and reached supersonic speed in seconds.
It was quiet in the dark, cold box in the desert, except for the low hum of machines.
He kept the targeting laser trained on the two lead men and stared so intently that each individual pixel stood out, a glowing pointillist dot abstracted from the image it was meant to form. Time became almost ductile, the seconds stretched and slowed in a strange electronic limbo. As he watched the men walk, the one who had fallen behind seemed to hear something and broke into a run to catch up with the other two. Then, bright and silent as a camera flash, the screen lit up with white flame.
Airman First Class Brandon Bryant stared at the scene, unblinking in the white-hot clarity of infrared. He recalls it even now, years later, burned into his memory like a photo negative: “The smoke clears, and there’s pieces of the two guys around the crater. And there’s this guy over here, and he’s missing his right leg above his knee. He’s holding it, and he’s rolling around, and the blood is squirting out of his leg, and it’s hitting the ground, and it’s hot. His blood is hot. But when it hits the ground, it starts to cool off; the pool cools fast. It took him a long time to die. I just watched him. I watched him become the same color as the ground he was lying on.”
Quite apart from anything else this article deserves my thanks for introducing me to a new word - and you know how I just love new words! - in this case, 'ductile', which means, according to my trusty OED, "(of a metal) able to be drawn out as a thin wire". Anyway, this story raises a confusion of thoughts and feelings. I remember seeing the first YouTube film of a missile strike as seen from several miles away by a hovering drone. In that particular case there was no doubt that the men concerned were enemy but even so I couldn't help a feeling of unease watching them walk towards their car not knowing that in seconds they would be obliterated.
For once, I am not going to re-act to this story instantly, I need to think it through. Perhaps we can come to some conclusions in the 'Comments'.
Corruption is, oh, so easy! Give a bit here, take a bit there, and before you know it you're up to your nostrils in liquid shit and the Devil's about to roar past on his motorboat. On both sides of the Atlantic the media, that essential pillar of democracy, is grievously, perhaps mortally, wounded. The only difference is that 'over here' it is the vile, scurvy politicians who are inflicting the wounds but 'over there' they are entirely self-inflicted. There could not be a better ilustration of the moral corruption in the American media than a story from that bastion of, er, libral democracy, the New York Times.
All politicians are liars and I don't condemn them all for that fault, not least because, sometimes it is an absolutely essential part of the job description. But when a politician lies not once, not twice, not even thrice but twenty nine times using more or less the exact same words, then that is bordering on the criminal. Thus spake President Obama: 'If you want to keep your healthcare plan then you can'. Needless to say, you can't! Had President George W. Bush uttered those words even once! and then been caught out the MSM would have been screeching from the highest hill. If he had repeated it 29 times they would have been howling for his impeachment. But when Obama says it and it is proven to be an outright lie, here is what the NYT manages to squeeze between its clenched teeth:
Congressional Republicans have stoked consumer fears and confusion with charges that the health care reform law is causing insurers to cancel existing policies and will force many people to pay substantially higher premiums next year for coverage they don’t want. That, they say, violates President Obama’s pledge that if you like the insurance you have, you can keep it. Mr. Obama clearly misspoke when he said that. [My emphasis]
Following the veritable shit storm that arose over that rank piece of mealy-mouthed pap, the matter was taken up by the NYT's own so-called 'Public Editor' whose job it is to represent readers' views, so:
On Monday, I asked the editorial page editor, Andrew Rosenthal, about the wording.
“We have a high threshold for whether someone lied,” he told me. The phrase that The Times used “means that he said something that wasn’t true.” Saying the president lied would have meant something different, Mr. Rosenthal said — that he knew it was false and intended to express the falsehood. “We don’t know that,” he said. [My emphasis]
Well, Mr. Rosenthal might not have known that, after all he's so busy editing the NYT he probably hasn't had the time to read anyone else's paper, but the rest of us knew it was a lie almost from his first utterence, let alone the twenty-ninth! The report ends thus:
Wouldn’t it have been better, I asked Mr. Rosenthal, if the editorial had said that Mr. Obama’s statements “clearly weren’t true,” or that the president “was clearly wrong” when he repeatedly made those statements?
He responded that the editorial’s language was fine, but he also allowed, “We could have done that.”
If Mr. Rosenthal had a ounce of honour and honesty in his entire body he would just jack it in and go take the sinecure in the White House that has probably been offered to him.
Yes, yes, I know, I trot that old saying out pretty regularly but if I can't be a bit of a bore at my age and on my own blog then where and when can I be? Anyway, I repeat the adage because with the sort of luck that sometimes drops on simpletons instead of the usual bird shit, 'Dim Dave' and his stumblebum partner, Georgie Osborne, may, just, be in receipt of a large dollop of good fortune. According to young Master Fraser Nelson at The Coffee House, 'everything's coming up roses' in the British economy. More important is that it is doing so at just about the right time, that is, on the way towards the next election. Here is a diagram showing the consensus of GDP growth from various experts issued by the Treasury:
Month after month, the consensus figure for 2014 growth has risen. The European Commission today fall in behind the consensus of 2.2 per cent. Citi thinks 3 per cent is closer to the mark.
This cheerful news is confirmed by a seperate but very important survey called the services purchasing managers’ index (PMI) which has a long historical record of more or less matching GDP growth exactly, as this diagram shows:
As Nelson points out, with considerable relish, this is truly Bad News for the 'Milipede'. If there is any truth in that old saying that "it's the economy, stoopid" then 'Ed the leader' has a real fight on his hands not helped by the fact that he has to carry 'Ed the Brokers Man' on his back. How many Tory attack ads will feature Ed Balls and his constant hand gesture at Question Time in the Commons indicating that the Tories were 'flat lining' the economy? He knew nothing when he was Chancellor and the economy crashed, the Tories will crow, and he knows nothing now because the economy is rocketing upwards.
Of course, 'many a slip twixt cup and lip' and there are all sorts of potential slips, if not downright catastrophes, possible over the channel, in the middle east and/or even 'over there'. And nor is it plainsailing 'over here' because, again as Nelson reminds us, George is still borrowing like one of those mugs desperate to use pay-day loan sharks. Similarly, the printing presses are still churning out the dosh and if this new Canadian Governor of the Bank of England starts playing the hard man before the election then all bets are off.
However, one thing is now clear beyond any doubt - Ed Miliband is unfit to run a parish council let alone a country. His total ignorance of how a nation's economy actually works is only exceeded by that of his shadow Chancellor. His ill-thought out and opportunistic pronouncements on the sort of interventions his government would make were designed totally for cheap headlines. Perhaps, just perhaps, 'The People' (dread words!) will 'suss' that out in time.
Don't say you are never given a choice, here at D&N, so go on, take your pick!
The one on the left, Maria Miller, is on the Right; and the one on the right, Gloria del Piero, is on the Left. Got that? I don't intend to say it again so pay attention! Anyway, this blog prides itself on the fact that its insults always adhere strictly to equal opportunities legislation and thus I can describe the pair of them as being utterly useless dipsticks of the type to be found in such large numbers milling around Westminster that if you threw a random custard pie - what a good idea! - it would hit someone very like these two.
. . . an optional part of the labour force. If we’re going to have the sort of economic recovery we need, women are at the heart of it.
So that's one in the eye for you, 'Mumsy', ruining Dave's 'Vision for Britain' by staying at home caring for your brats! Or, as this sensible lady put it:
Lynne Burnham, of campaign group Mothers At Home Matter, said: ‘It just makes no sense. What we need is to get our youngsters into work.
‘Why such an almighty push to get mothers into work, leaving their children as young as six months? It’s feminism gone mad. The mother-child bond is paramount and it’s absolutely crucial babies have that time with their primary carer.’
Quentin Letts, a shrewd parliamentary observer, in an earlier commentary on Ms. Millar described her thus:
The real Cabinet dud is Culture’s Maria Miller, a politician promoted far beyond her talents.
And all that one can say concerning Ms. del Piero is to repeat the order to one's favourite barman - same again! This little poppet posed topless at the age of 15 because her daddy was poor and so sick he could not work. Fair enough, and anyway we all do stupid things when we're young, so did Ms. Piero pass the, er, hard-earned dosh onto poor old dad? Not a bit of it! According to her she spent it on clothes for herself because, 'like, well, y' know, that's wot kids want'! Needless to say, this paragon of progressive liberty kicked off on one when she found out that the 'hacks of Fleet Street' were sniffing round trying to find copies of those topless photos. I wish them well in their hunt!
And to think what some of those suffragettes went through in order to get women the vote and places in parliament.
I do apologise for the rudery in the title but please note the inverted commas! It is a line from the film 'Argo' which, courtesy of my mate Rupe's magical recording-thingie, I watched last night. It was an, er, interesting film - and if you sense the hesitation and lack of enthusiasm you are spot on. The tale it told was quite extraordinary, even more so given that it was based on true events which followed the Iranian revolution and the downfall of the Shah. Half a dozen US embassy staff found refuge in the Canadian embassy and the CIA was tasked with producing a plan to get them out before they were discovered and before the Iranians closed the Canadian embassy as well. A CIA officer called Tony Mendez (played by Ben Affleck) came up with a plan which was so way out one wonders what he was smoking at the time! Of course, such plans always earn the soubriquet of 'audacious' when they are successful but when they fail, as poor old Jimmy Carter's effort to rescue the other Embassy staff by coup de main did, you end up as one of history's prats! Happily, against all odds, Mendez's plan succeeded. The CIA are frequently lambasted, and frequently deserve to be, but when 'the boys done good' then I am happy to give them a cheer.
Unfortunately, this film fell between two genres. It would have worked as a straightforward documentary with certain scenes and events played by actors, or, and perhaps better still, it would have worked as a drama just loosely based on real events. Not too surprisingly, the best parts of the film were the scenes in Hollywood where the cover story of a Star Wars-type picture called Argo was concocted. Here, amongst its own kind, and with tongue firmly in cheek, it had the beginnings of what could have been an excellent satire because we met a gallery of fascinating Hollywood characters one of whom produced the witty line in my title. But needs must, we had to keep returning to Tehran and the 'captive' embassy staff who never had the time to differentiate themselves as individual characters. Ben Affleck playing the lead operative, Tony Mendez, attempted to do what Gary Oldman did as George Smiley in 'Tinker, Tailor ...', that is, to play him as absolutely straightfaced and unemotional but with Oldman you sensed the emotions seething beneath the surface, with Affleck, hiding behind a huge head of hair and beard, you didn't so much wonder what he was thinking but whether he was thinking at all!
Still, it was, as I say, interesting and therefore worth watching. Also, there was some humour to be derived from a true story of daring-do which actually 'out-darey-dooed' the best fiction from the Bourne Supremacy films.
Yes, yes, I know this blog is known as 'The Glums' but the fact is that there is precious little 'Good News' to go around. Although, having said that, just recently there has been hardly any news at all which, if you are a 'glass half full' sort of a person, is Good News but if, like me, you are a 'glass half empty' type then this quiescence is ominous. And even if I had any optimism I can always rely on the likes of that arch-conservative, John Bolton, formerly 'Dubya's diplomat at the UN, to squidge it out of existence - as he does over at WND Politics:
Israel does not have much time to make a “fateful decision” about whether to strike Iran’s nuclear sites, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton said Sunday in a radio interview.
“Israel, I think, now faces the fateful decision whether it will allow Iran to get nuclear weapons, thus constituting a true existential threat to Israel,” he said.
“Or whether they will strike as the Israelis have done twice before against nuclear programs in the hands of hostile states,” Bolton told WABC Radio’s Aaron Klein.
I do remember a few months ago Mr. Netanyahu warning Obama, as he began his delicate courtship of the Iranian government, that Israel would definitely never allow the Iranians to build a bomb. He has been quiet ever since. And I also remember warning you all that when the Israelis do strike it will come out of the blue with absolutely no warning. There are only two sets of people who know just how close (or far) the Iranians are from getting their bomb, that is, the Iranian government and the Israeli government. My guess is that Obama hasn't a clue and that his intelligence agencies are so busy reading Mrs. Merkel's mail that they can't give him one!
Please note, this is not a forecast - I'm jest sayin'!
What's a body to believe these days? Take the euro for starters - oh, go on, please, take it and, er, bin it, will you? To weigh up that problem on this hand, and then on that hand, and then on the other hand, you need as many hands as that Indian goddess with eight arms! Today I read Mr. Chriss Street at The American Thinker who assures me that that thrilling blonde lady who runs the French National Front party is poised to win big, and he means BIG, at the European election next year - because even the French are now sick of the whole European racket. According to Mr. Street, the lady in question has made advances - not that sort, do behave! - to several other anti-EU parties in Europe, including our very own, dearly beloved UKIP, so that they can stand on an agreed platform with the very real possibility that for the first time the European parliament will be controlled by anti-EU parties.
So far so good but then I turn to Mr. Simon Nixon at the WSJand he has some amazing - well, actually, totally gobsmacking is more like it - news to the effect that the Greek electorate remains 69% in favour(!!!) of the euro. How, I ask myself, has the land of Plato and Socrates sunk to such a level of knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing stupidity? Of course, they're after more money from Brussels so even though the current prime minister ran on a rabid campaign against the EU anti-bail out conditions he is going to make 'nicely-nicely' with the 'Kommisars'.
Meanwhile, over at The Telegraph, Ambrose E-P, warns that southern Europe is poised on the cliff-edge, not because the euro currency is crap but because it is too damn strong!
In China’s case, it is deliberately driving down the yuan to capture export share. You could say China is exporting excess manufacturing capacity to Europe, or, in plain talk, exporting unemployment.
This is why the euro has long been too strong for its own good. It surged a further 9 per cent against the dollar from June to early October, before hitting the wall this week. It has risen 28 per cent against the Japanese yen in a year. This is a bizarre state of affairs for a currency bloc struggling out of recession. Weak prospects normally mean a weak currency, but there is nothing normal about Europe’s monetary union. [My emphasis]
The euro exchange rate is far too high for two-thirds of the euro states, a key reason why unemployment hit an all-time peak of 12.2 per cent in September. It is pushing Europe’s crisis states into Thirties-style deflation, making it almost impossible for Italy, Spain and Portugal to dig their way out of debt.
And it's not just those crafty Chinese who are working their dastardly tricks on the poor Europeans, no, their, er, strongest ally, the 'good ol' US of A' has watched benignly as the dollar has dropped like a lead nickel! And everyone else, including us Brits, have joined in:
The US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England have nudged down their currencies by printing money. The Bank of Japan has carried out a devaluation putsch. The Swiss have trumped them all, printing à outrance to cap the franc.
Ambrose E-P quotes a pro-European Frenchman:
The north-south split has many causes. Germany sells machines and prestige cars with a fat profit margin. “Club Med” (the south) competes lower down, against China. Yet it is also because Germany screwed down wages in the early years of EMU, gaining 25 per cent in competitiveness against its peers. How this happened is an old story. But the consequences are toxic, so toxic that François Heisbourg, French head of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, is calling for the euro to be “put to sleep” in order to save the European project. “We must face the reality that the EU itself is now threatened by the euro,” he said.
Mr Heisbourg is pro-Europe. His point is that conflicting narratives of the crisis are emerging, pitting creditor and deficit states against each other. He compares them to the black legends after the First World War, when twisted views fed an ideological backlash, and fears that it will end in “a nervous breakdown and an uncontrolled disintegration of the euro”.
At this somewhat nervous point I am going to make a prediction - who sniggered? - and I advise you all to take note! I reckon that next May the following will occur:
a: The euro currency will fail.
b: The European Union will disintegrate.
c: Greece will fall into bloody civil war.
f: There will be months of confusion and anarchy in which communications and travel through Europe will breakdown.
What, you might ask, is the evidential basis for this gloomy prognostication? Simple, I am booked to go on holiday to Rhodes next May! Need I say more?
"As good as this bar is," said the Scotsman, "I still prefer the pubs back home. In Glasgow , there's a wee place called McTavish's. The landlord goes out of his way for the locals. When you buy four drinks, he'll buy the fifth drink."
"Well, Angus," said the Englishman, "At my local in London , the Red Lion, the barman will buy you your third drink after you buy the first two." "Ahhh, dat's nothin'," said Paddy Shahan, the Irishman. "Back home in me favorite pub, the moment you set foot in the place, they'll buy you a drink, then another, all the drinks you like, actually. Then, when you've had enough drinks, they'll take you upstairs and see dat you gets laid, all on the house!" The Englishman and Scotsman were suspicious of the claims. "Did this actually happen to you,Paddy?"
"Not me meself, personally, no," admitted the Irishman, "but it did happen to me sister quite a few times."
A Texan walks into a pub in Galway, Ireland and raises his voice to the crowd of drinkers. He shouts, "I hear you Irish are a bunch of drinkin' fools. I'll give $500 American dollars to anybody in here who can drink 10 pints of Guinness back to back."
The room is quiet and no one takes of the Texan's offer.
Paddy Murphy gets up and leaves the bar. Thirty minutes later, he shows back up and taps the Texan on the shoulder. "Is your bet still good?" asks Paddy.
The Texan answers, "Yes," and he orders the barman to line up 10 pints of Guinness.
Immediately, Paddy downs all 10 pints of beer, drinking them all back to back. The other pub patrons cheer and the Texan sits down in amazement. The Texan gives the Irishman the $500 and asks, "If ya don't mind me askin', where did you go for that 30 minutes you were gone?"
Paddy Murphy replies, "Oh... I had to go to the pub down the street to see if I could do it first."
"Under democracy, one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule — and both commonly succeed, and are right." H.L. Mencken
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